202 



Book Notices. [^''peb^'''' 



The glossary of geological names and terms will also prove 

 handy. Some forty illustrations, maps, and diagrams are 

 included. The only defect which can be urged against the 

 volume is the rather thin paper on which it is printed ; but 

 that may have been intentional, in order to make it more portable 

 as a companion on a ramble. 



Australian Plants, suitable for Gardens, Parks, Timber 

 Reserves, &c. By W. R. Guilfoyle, late Director of the 

 Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Melbourne : Whitcombe and 

 Tombs Ltd. 478 pp. (8| x 5^), with about 300 illustrations. 

 15.S. 

 This long-promised volume has at last been issued, and, while 

 its compilation and production must have entailed a great 

 amount of work on the part of its author, for the sake of Aus- 

 tralian plants, and the furtherance of their cultivation by 

 public bodies and private persons, it were better it had not 

 been written. As a guide to what plants of Australian origin, 

 either showy, useful, or ornamental, it may be attempted to 

 cultivate, it is perfectly useless to the average plant-lover. 

 To call it a companion volume to Messrs. Lucas and Le Soucf's 

 " Animals of Australia " is putting the latter in very poor 

 company. Had it been written on the lines of the same 

 publishers' " Plants of New Zealand," by Messrs. Laing 

 and Blackwell, reviewed in these pages some four years 

 ago, it would have been a work welcomed by botanists all 

 over the world. As it is, unless a person is thoroughly well 

 acquainted with Australian plants, and has the " Flora 

 Australiensis," or Mueller's, Maiden's, Bailey's, and Tate's 

 publications at hand, it will be impossible for him to make 

 much use of the volume. For instance, what is the use of 

 listing Phylloglossiim Driimmondii or Stylidium despediim, or 

 many of the species of Diuris, Pterostylis, Chiloglottis, or 

 Caladenia as plants suitable for gardens, parks, or timber 

 reserves ? Such plants should be indicated as fit only for 

 treatment as pot plants under shelter. Who is likely to be able 

 to grow Caltha iniroloba, Celmisia longijolia, or Aciphylla 

 glacialis (all inhabitants of our highest Alps), and others of a 

 similar character without notes as to their habitat and mode 

 of treatment ? The eight pages devoted to directions for 

 sowing and raising Australian seeds, and the treatment of 

 Australian plants, are so general that it is doubtful whether 

 they will be of any use. Almost as much information can be got 

 from Paxton's Dictionary, though it is forty years old. Should 

 a person desire to plant a breakwind of Australian trees, or 

 specimen flowering shrubs on a lawn, or an artificial fern-gully, 

 he has no means of finding out from the information given as 



