BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 135 



as the laurels and a few other veterans had heen transported to 

 the new botanic garden early in the nineteenth century. 



The twelfth volume of the Proceedings of the Washington 

 Acadeimj of Sciences is mainly occupied by a monograph of the 

 Lichen Flora of the Santa Cruz Peninsula, California, by Albert 

 W. T. C. Herre, in which the following new species are described : 

 Verrucaria melas, V. Stanfordi, Cyphelium occidentalis, C. Ander- 

 soni, Bacidia ioessa, Acarospora Hassei, A. arenosa, Placynthium 

 duhium, Lecania Dudleyi, Lecidea j^f^t-cifica ; and a new genus, 

 Zahlhrucknera (Z. calcarea). Another botanical paper is that on 

 the PolytrichacecB of Western North America, by T. C. Fryes, with 

 numerous illustrations. 



Annual and Biennial Garden Plants, by A. E. Speer (Murray, 

 7s. 6fZ. net), dealing with " their value and uses, with full in- 

 structions for their cultivation," is the most recent addition to 

 the flood of garden books which has been pouring out for several 

 years and is apparently still unexhausted. It is a widely spaced, 

 well-printed volume, alphabetically arranged, with numerous, 

 often very poor and scrappy, illustrations by the author ; some of 

 these, indeed, — e. g. Argemone grandiflora, Godetia — give little 

 idea of the plant, and others, such as Foxglove, are taken from 

 very inadequate specimens. Many of the plants included are of 

 course so common that no description is necessary, but of others the 

 descriptions seem very inadequate. A good deal of space is occupied 

 by what are supposed to be English names, but does anyone ever 

 call Schizanthus retusus "Notched Fringe-flower " or Oenothera 

 biennis "Large Kampion "? and can " Cotgrave " be a name for 

 the Sweet William ? Some attempt — not always successful, e. g. 

 " Gri'ffithi" "La'blab" — is made to give the proper pronunciation 

 of the Latin names ; misprints are numerous — " semplerfiorens," 

 " Barbery." The cultural directions seem full and useful. 



We are glad to see that Floioers of the Field, as enlarged by 

 Mr. Boulger (S.P.C.K., 7s. Qd.), has gone into a new edition — the 

 thirty-third of the work — to which has been added a biography 

 and portrait of the original author, the Eev. C. A. Johns. First 

 published in 1853, the book has been to many botanists the 

 introduction to a knowledge of British plants ; in its present form 

 it has been once more carefully revised, and includes the latest 

 additions to the British list, the nomenclature adopted being in 

 accordance with the rules of the Vienna Botanical Congress, as 

 confirmed last year at Brussels. We still regret that the craze 

 for colour which at present dominates popular taste has necessi- 

 tated the introduction of a number of coloured plates, which add 

 materially to the weight of the book though but little to its use- 

 fulness ; poor as some of these are, they are however preferable 

 to those which appear in another publisher's issue of the work, 

 to which the S.P.C.K. edition is in every respect superior. 



The small (8th) part which concludes the first volume of Mr. 

 Williams's Prodromus Flora Britannicce contains the completion 

 of the Uhodoracece and the Pyrolacece, with an introductory note 



