232 LITERATURE OF SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURE. 



with a carefully adjusted list of places where good collections exist. 

 Several chapters are given upon the special adaptation of trees in 

 this country for town culture, for foliage, for form of outline, group- 

 ing, or for planting in single line or solitary position. It is an 

 admirable work and well written, but is certainly more adapted for 

 the proprietor's library table than for the use and instruction of the 

 practical forester. 



A more recent work still than that of Mr Montgredien, is the 

 octavo volume published last year by Messrs Longman, entitled 

 " Hand-book of Hardy Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants," 

 by W. B. Hemsley (late of Kew Herbarium). This work is based 

 upon the French production of Messrs Decaisne and Naudin, and 

 deals largely with technicalities of detailed descriptions, nomen- 

 clature, &c. It contains a very full and complete glossary of terms 

 in botany and plant economy. It gives the generic names, with 

 their derivations in detail, for the benefit of such as have not a ready 

 knowledge of Greek or Latin ; and it gives very full descriptions, 

 with the native countries and habitats, of the trees referred to, and 

 adds general remarks upon the hardiness and comparative suitabi- 

 lity of each to different situations and circumstances. The notice 

 of herbaceous plants and flowers gives the work more a general 

 botanical aspect than a merely arboricultural work requires, but still we 

 are justified in awarding it a place in the literature of arboriculture 

 from the value of the remarks and classifications, &c, allotted in it 

 to tree culture, and the general excellence of the entire book. Its 

 only fault appears to be that too much space is prominently given 

 to some genera to the exclusion of some remarks that might have 

 been made upon others. The nomenclature of Coniferse, as in many 

 other works at the present day, is sadly confusing and unsatisfac- 

 tory. 



The volume upon Old and Remarkable Trees,* edited under the 

 superintendence of Mr TV". Thomson (late of Dalkeith), gives a 

 very fair and complete list of the largest trees throughout the 

 country, specifying their girths, dimensions, soil, situation, and 

 exposure, grouped into counties, and the different species of trees 

 classified accordingly, with a letterpress description of the genus. 

 But while this volume, as a record of what is old and remarkable, 

 is good so far as it goes, there is much yet to be done in this 

 particular branch of the literature of arboriculture, and in collecting 



* Old and Remarkable Tn\->s in Scotland. Thomson, Ed. 8vo. A High- 

 land Society publication. 



