664 



NATURE 



[February 19, 1920 



fascination. VMiat that fascination is, and why 

 there should be any at all, is hard to say. . . . 

 Papua is a land of disappointment, a land where 

 nothing- happens as you anticipate, where the 

 unexpected usually happens, and the impossible 

 is achieved." 



An introductory sketch by Dr. Haddon gives 

 a short biography of the author, who was killed 



Fig. 2. — Baljiri man from near Dutch boundary. From ' Unexplored Hew Guinea. 



at Polygon Wood, in France, in September, 

 1917. His death deprived ethnology of a 

 keen and intelligent observer, and the Papuan 

 Government of a most zealous and successful 

 magistrate, loved by his fellow-officers, and 

 trusted by the natives, whom he understood and 

 with whom he sympathised. 



Sidney H. Ray. 



NO. 2625, VOL. 104] 



ALPINE PLANTS FOR ROCK-GARDENS.'^ 



PROCLAMATIONS of purpose are often con- 

 fessions of failure to achieve it," is the open- 

 ing sentence of the Introduction of Mr. Farrer's 

 book. His volume is "vast," and from the 

 nature of the subject justly, so. Mr. Farrer has not 

 only g-jvcn an account of the rock-g^arden plants 

 which now figure in the nursery- 

 men's catalogues, but has also 

 unearthed from botanical treatises 

 a large number which no doubt 

 will some day come into cultiva- 

 tion, so that his book is of more 

 than present-day value. In addi- 

 tion to this, he has been at great 

 pains to discover the correct 

 names of the plants he records, 

 which has entailed considerable 

 research into botanical literature, 

 and for this valuable labour he is 

 deserving of high praise. He also 

 gives some useful information as 

 to rock-g-arden construction, and 

 throughout the volumes there are 

 g-ood practical instructions as to 

 the cultivation of the various 

 plants. 



But Mr. Farrer has unfor- 

 tunately failed to sink either his 

 own individuality or idiosyncrasies 

 in the volumes before us, so that 

 instead of presenting- us with a 

 lucid and useful account of rock 

 plants suitable for Eng-lish 

 gardens easy to be understood, 

 he has expressed his own ideas 

 and opinions with an exuberance 

 of persiflagfe that is very irri- 

 tating. In his Introduction of 

 eighty-four pages and throughout 

 the book the author seems far 

 tnore interested in striving to 

 commit extravagant excesses with 

 the English language than in con- 

 veying useful information aboul 

 Alpine plants, and in consequenct 

 many of the really valuable por- 

 tions of the book tend to be over- 

 looked. With regard to his de 

 scriptions of the plants, moreover 

 we cannot say that his work is 

 very helpful. After his diatribes 

 on the wearisome jargon of 

 botanists one does not feel 

 that the following descriptior 

 of Dianthus arenariiis is eithei 

 very intelligible or informing : " Related tc 

 D. squarrosus, is much laxer in the habit 

 with fewer flower stems, taller and frailei 

 and larger, with very fringy whirligigs pi 

 white or pale pink." Nor is this seven-and-a 



1 " The English Rnck-Garden." Bv Reginald F.irrer. Vol. i., pp. Ixiv-* 

 S04-t-52 plates ; Vo). ii.. pp. viii + 524 + 50 plates. (London and Edinburgh 

 "r. C. and E. C. Jacl<, Ltd., 1919.) Price 3/. 3^. net two vols. 



