NEW PUBLICATIONS. 363 
this Journal. I should never have thought ia publishing my maiden essay on 
“ Caoutchouc,” unless he had encouraged me to do so; whilst the kindly: recog- 
nition with which it was received, decided me, in a great measure, in continuing 
to work up kindred subjects. In th g myself, I know well that I do 
but echo the sentiments of many others who won their first spurs in the fair 
field opened to them in the pages of this Journal. 
11, Arihur Street, Deptford, S.E. James COLLINS. 
November, 1869. 
NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
Flora of Middlesex: a Topographical and Historical Account of the 
Plants found in the County, with Sketches of its Physical Geography 
and Climate, and of the Progress of Middlesex Botany during the 
last Three Centuries. By H. TRIMEN, M.B., F.L.S., and W. T. 
Dyer, M.A. London: Hardwicke. 1869. 8vo, pp. xli. and 428. 
With a map. 
For a botanist who asks for variety of situation, or estimates the 
interest of his area of study by the abundance and number of rare 
plants which it furnishes, Middlesex does not by any means offer a 
promising field of research. As a botanical county, it is much inferior 
to Surrey or Kent. With the exception of Rutlandshire, it is the 
smallest county in England. Its total area is under three hundred 
square miles, of which at least a sixth is taken up by the houses and 
roads of London. In the remainder there is very little to diversify 
the character of the surface, for although, as we pass in a north- 
western direction the population becomes scanty many miles before 
the county limit is reached, there are no hills of any importance, and 
very little heath or woodland remains, and even in its original condi- 
tion, the soil must have been very uniform in character. But, on 
other grounds, its botany possesses a special interest. A large pro- 
portion of the earlier investigators of English plants lived in London 
in the days when it was difficult and expensive to make distant jour- 
neys for collecting, so that many of the specimens which were used as 
the foundation for the figures and descriptions of the older books were 
gathered within its boundaries; and for no other tract in England 
have we such a multifarious collection of stations placed on record in 
print, or preserved in the older herbaria at the British Museum and 
in other places. 
