NA TURE 



i8i 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1909. 



ASIATIC PALMS. 

 Aiiiwh of the Royal Botanic Ganic}!, Caliidla, 

 Vol. xi. Asiatic Palms— Lepidocaryeae. Part i., 

 The Species of Calamus. By Odoardo Beccari. 

 Pp. iii + 518; 2 4to plates; 23S plates large fol. 

 (Calcutta : Bengal Secretariat Press, igo8.) Price 

 7'- 



THE palms of Asia have received considerable 

 attention in the Royal Botanic Garden at Cal- 

 cutta, where there is an extensive Palmetum, with a 

 noble' collection of living species.. Roxburgh, super- 

 intendent of the garden from 1793 to iS'S. studied 

 the palms of the Indian Peninsula, and left, in addi- 

 tion to descriptions posthumously published in his 

 " Flora Indica," a series of drawings of the species 

 he knew alive. Anderson, superintendent from 1861 

 to 1870, described the palms of Sikkim in the Journal 

 of the Linnean Society, vol. xi., in 1869. Kurz, 

 curator of the Calcutta herbarium from 1864 to 1878, 

 dealt with the palms of Burma in the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xliii., part ii., in 1874. 

 But the work of Roxburgh was only preliminary, the 

 work of Anderson and Kurz only supplementary to 

 that of Griffith, who acted as superintendent of the 

 Calcutta garden during 1842-4. This able observer 

 died at Malacca in 1845, and his treatise, " The Palms 

 of British East India," was not printed until 1850. 

 Less complete than he could have made it had he lived 

 to see it through the press, this work by Griffith yet 

 remained the standard authority on the subject until 

 the appearance, in 1892, of the account of the Indian 

 Palmes bv Beccari and Hooker in the " Flora of 

 British India," vol. vi. The long-standing associa- 

 tion of the great Calcutta garden with the elucidation 

 and illustration of Asiatic palms is now happily con- 

 tinued by the publication in its Annals of the first 

 portion of a comprehensive account of the family by 

 Signor Beccari, who dedicates his work to the memory 

 of the gifted Griffith. 



This volume commences the discussion of the 

 tribe Lepidocaryeae, palms the fruits of which are clad 

 in a mail of reflexed, adpressed, closely imbricating 

 scales, and deals with the genus Calamus, the largest 

 and most important in that tribe. Workers who know 

 these " Rotangs " as they grow are familiar with 

 the difficulties that attend their study; those un- 

 acquainted with these fascinating but formidable 

 " canes " in a wild state will learn something oi 

 these difficulties from the essay with which the volume 

 opens. .Ml will welcome a work on the subject by 

 one whose knowledge of the species in the field is 

 comparable with that of Griffith himself, and who has 

 had the advantage, which was denied to Griffith, of 

 access to practically all the herbarium material of the 

 genus that exists. 



The greater part of the letterpress is devoted to 



detailed accounts of the various species which the 



accompanying plates illustrate. Those who study 



these descriptions will be grateful to the author for 



NO. 2076, VOL. 81] 



the conscientious absence of uniformity, in their pre- 

 sentation. Where his material is adeo,uate, the author 

 has provided full and carefully weighed statements 

 of the specific characters; where his material is 

 limited he has restricted himself to faithful accounts 

 ot the actual specimens on which his species are 

 based. His work is thus free from that unconscious 

 tendency to generalise more widely than the material 

 at 'a writer's command will justify, which sometimes 

 detracts from the value of treatises wherein the 

 descriptions of species that depend on the study of 

 perhaps a solitary example are cast in the_ same 

 mould as those based on extensive suites of specimens; 

 At the same time, he has shown himself fully alive 

 to the advantages of methodical treatment, and, in a 

 careful synopsis which immediately precedes his de- 

 tailed descriptions, the author has characterised all the 

 species he is able to recognise with sufficient fulness 

 to admit of their determination, and in a manner that 

 leaves nothing to be desired so far as uniformity of 

 presentation is concerned. , _ 



In a svstematic conspectus of the species, which 

 follows the definition of the genus, the author has 

 skilfully apphed to the practical task of establishing 

 order among what would otherwise be an undis- 

 ciplined horde of forms that knowledge, at once com- 

 prehensive and minute, of the morphology of Calamus 

 to which the introductory essay testifies. He is 

 thereby able to throw his species into sixteen readily 

 recognisable groups, some of which admit of further 

 subdivision, while the whole of them are capable of 

 at^gregation into four series. One of these series, it 

 is true, contains but a single group, the characters of 

 which are admittedly anomalous, while the imperfect 

 nature of the material as yet available renders it impos- 

 sible, in the case of about 5 per cent, of the species, to 

 state with 'certainty to what group they should be 

 referred. But this conspectus will enable the worker 

 in the field, whose needs should be the first considera- 

 tion of conscientious svstematists, to recognise with 

 comparative ease at least the affinities of any 

 " Rotang " he may encounter. The apphed botanist, 

 too will feel indebted to the author for the many 

 economic notes that accompany the detailed accounts 

 of such species as are practically useful. 



The plates which accompany the work are. mainly 

 phototvpe reproductions of the author's natural-size 

 photographs of herbarium specimens ; in a few cases, 

 where the material available did not readily lend itself 

 to this method, lithographed drawings take the place 

 of phototypes. Photographic methods, though usually 

 satisfactory so far as fidelity is concerned, when 

 appUed to the illustration of herbarium specimens 

 often leave something to be desired from the testhetic 

 standpoint. Here, however, there is little ground for 

 criticism on this score, and if it be true that specimens 

 of Calamus lend themselves more readily to the re- 

 quirements of photography than herbarium material 

 usuallv does, this is not the whole explanation of the 

 success that has here been achieved. That success is 

 in large measure due to the care and skill of the 

 author, who has, moreover, been fortunate in the 

 •natter of reproduction from his negatives, which 



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