36 . BOTANICAL BOOKS AND COLLECTIONS. 



is an entire revision and re-arrangement to suit the Natural 

 Order system and the extended knowledge of the British Flora ; 

 it only contains the Flowering Plants, Ferns and allies. 



For many the. possession of all the above-named works is 

 needless, perhaps impossible, though it may be worth remem- 

 bering that many booksellers (Edward Bumpus, Holborn Bars, 

 E.G., for instance) will allow 25 per cent, off the prices here 

 quoted. For practical purposes, however, sufficient would be 

 found in N"os. 1 and 5, or, better still, in Nos. 4 (6 vols.) and 5 ; 

 perhaps in No. 7 alone, used with caution. 



To these should be added a book on Structural Botany : 

 Oliver's Lessons in Elementary Botany (Macmillan, 4s. 6d.) 

 is as good as any. There is a work recently published by 

 F. A. Messer (10s. 6d.), which is a praiseworthy attempt to resist 

 the unsatisfactory and unworthy plan of identifying plants by 

 pictures, without a knowledge of their structural peculiarities. 

 Sections are given of the critical parts of the plants, and if the 

 principle were extended to the species as well as the genera, a 

 want would be supplied and an evil checked. A most in- 

 teresting book is Le Maout and Decaisnes' General System 

 of Botany, Descriptive and Analytical, translated by Mrs. 

 Hooker, with 5,500 figures and sections (31s. 6d., Longmans). 

 It embraces exotic as well as British orders. The chief 

 authority on the whole subject is Sach's Text Book of Botany, 

 translated by Bennett and Dyer (31s. 6d., Clarendon Press), 

 in which the organism of plants is subjected to a rigid and 

 critical analysis. 



Having spoken of the aids to a knowledge of Botany, and 

 intending to append a few hints to collectors, a protest must 

 here be made against the pernicious custom of rooting up wild 

 plants for transference to the garden. The inevitable result 

 must be a complete annihilation of all interesting species, as 

 there are but few gardens where their natural surroundings 

 can be supplied and their growth insured. From the first the 

 Club has endeavoured to discountenance this practice, with 

 what success the total destruction of the rare Brittle Bladder 

 Fern in its new locality will show ; if that fern is extinct in 

 Harleston, it is probably lost to the county. Foreseeing, then, 

 that the publication of the localities of the flowering plants of 

 Harleston might be their death-knell, the writer has abstained 

 from giving much of the detailed information possessed, pre- 

 ferring to direct those who desire to obtain specimens without 

 injury to the living plant to the members of the Club, on whose 

 authority the records are given. It is a truly selfish principle 

 which robs the woods and hedges of flowers given for the 

 enjoyment of those who, as the writer himself, have no other 



