132 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 
The book contains a portrait of the author, a map of Perthshire, 
and Prof. Traill has also contributed a memoir, a list of scientific 
papers, and an introduction. Obviously Dr White’s own introduction 
(43 pp.) is incomplete.. Apparently it has been thought best to 
publish it, so far as possible, without alteration, though some minor 
changes have been introduced. Hence when the heading “Geology 
of Perthshire more especially in its relation to the distribution of 
the Flora” arouses pleasant anticipations of an account of a sorely 
neglected part of field-botany by one well qualified to judge, we 
must not be disappointed to find nothing whatever about the Flora, 
only geological information and a few notes as to the fertility of the 
soils. 
The subdivisions of the county are based on the river-valleys. 
Fortunately we have a Highland and a Lowland Isla as well as 
similar divisions for Perth, Earn, and Forth. Most unfortunately the 
vicious system of Watsonian vicecounties has not been entirely 
thrown away and this is the solitary fault to be found with this 
handsome volume. There is in this Flora, as indeed in most county 
Floras, nothing to show that Darwin or Drude or Engler or Warming 
or the numerous tribe of German, Scandinavian, and Russian botanists 
ever existed. The ideas of distribution in this country have stopped 
with Mr H.C. Watson. If the distribution alone has to be made 
clear, one might have thought that Mr C. B. Clarke’s paper on 
Tabulation Sub-areas had proved clearly enough that the only satis- 
factory plan is to make subdivisions based on degrees of latitude and 
longitude. If these are drawn small enough, any required degree of 
accuracy in the range of a species can be obtained, and its distribution 
on a railway line, in a valley or along a mountain chain stands out 
clearly. For the study of plant-associations or plant distribution on 
modern lines, this book affords no help whatever. Fortunately the 
absurd West Perth, East Perth, and Mid Perth have been disregarded. 
Dr White has gone so far as to separate the Old Red Sandstone 
districts from the Pre-Cambrian or “Silurian” (p. 4) and this is the 
line of division followed between the Highland and Lowland Earn, 
&e. Presumably, like many others, he was afraid to disturb the 
faith of the average British botanist in the late Mr H. C. Watson. 
The actual treatment is best seen by a typical example. 
OrpER XXXIX.—ERICACEAE. 
TRIBE I.—-ARBUTEAE, 
1, ARCTOSTAPHYLOS Adans, 
A. Uva-ursi Spreng. (87, 88, 89.) 
L. O Earn, ) O oO 
H. O Earn, Perth, Isla, oO Breadalbane, Rannoch, Atholl. 
HAB. Dry rocky places on the mountains. Local. 
ALT. Ascends to 2350 ft. in Rannoch and 2000 in H. Earn and 
Atholl. ; 
Loch Rannoch (Professor Hope, 1762). 
Almost confined to the Highland area; but near Crieff it occurs on conglomerate 
rocks of the Old Red Sandstone. 
L. stands for the Lowland Districts on Old Red Sandstone. H. 
for the Highland on older rocks. ‘‘O” means that the plant does not 
