REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 155 



{Porthetria dispar), works great havoc on many species of trees ; 

 it was accidentally introduced from Europe in 1869. where its 

 depredations are not nearly so serious. At the same time 

 perhaps the worst insect we have, the pine weevil [Bylobius 

 abteties), is not mentioned, though its near relative the white- 

 pine weevil {Fissodes strobi) is well described and figured. 



The most valuable part of the book is included in chapter v., 

 which is contributed by that distinguished systematic botanist 

 Mr Alfred Rehder of the Arnold Arboretum, and consists of an 

 enumeration of almost all the conifers of the world and many 

 of their varieties : the list is by no means confined to those 

 known to be in cultivation in North America. Mr Rehder has 

 inserted well-planned keys for identification of genera and 

 species, and the chapter is admirably illustrated with botanical 

 drawings of leaves and fruits. 



The two short chapters, vi. and vii., treat of evergreen broad- 

 leaved species, and this part of the work seems fragmentary 

 and unsatisfactory. It is quite an arbitrary method to divide 

 such genera as Viburnum^ Berberis, and Lonicera into deciduous 

 and non-deciduous species, and reminds one of the practice in 

 certain light botanical literature of classifying herbaceous plants 

 according to the colour of their flowers ! Twenty-five evergreen 

 species are described in some detail by Mr Rehder as being 

 hardy in the North-east States and Canada, they include seven 

 rhododendrons and six species of Berberis. 



Chapter viii. which follows is a "Check-list," compiled by 

 Professor R. W. Curtis of Cornell University, of " Woody Ever- 

 greens." It is admittedly not quite complete and omits a few 

 broad-leaved evergreen species native to North America, and 

 all the Chinese rhododendrons, though it embraces every conifer 

 in the world and not a few of the plants recently introduced 

 into cultivation. The list will prove of considerable value for 

 easy reference ; it gives the habitat of each species and indica- 

 tions as to hardiness. 



The book is embellished by forty-eight half-tone plates, of 

 which forty-three are of specimen conifers, and ninety-seven 

 illustrations in the text, the majority of which occur in Mr 

 Rehder's enumeration of the Coniferae. 



F. R. S. Balfour. 



