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HAYWARD'S BOTANISTS' POCKET BOOK. 



A really useful and reliable ' reminder ' re the distinctive characters- 

 of the vegetations of the green ways, in the handy shape of a thirteenth 

 revised and re-set edition of Hay ward's Botanists' Pocket-Book, first issued 

 in 1872, and of proved value even then, came in the Fall of 1909 as a dis- 

 tinct result of the fillip given to botanic field work by the appearance of 

 G. C. Druce's Oxford List of British Plants, and the tenth edition of the 

 London Catalogue. It more than deserves, it almost compels an analytic 

 notice in any botanic survey of the last lustrum. The revisionary work, 

 resulting in an enlargement to XLIV. and 280 pages, is a marvel of con- 

 densation in face of the not inconsiderable and most happy inclusion 

 of the differentiating points between dozens of ' new ' found species and 

 some hundreds of ' varieties,' to say nothing of some other score or more 

 of Strangers ' on the make ' that, finding the conditions of life in our clime 

 ' grateful ' to them, are in the way to become quite permanent integers 

 . in the flora of our coasts and fields. To say that this classificatory labour 

 of love — a ' labor linicB ' indeed, it must have been — has been performed 

 by G. C. Druce, M.A., the Fielding Curator in the University of Oxford, 

 is a sufficing guarantee of the well-nigh impeccability of the result. I 

 have tested it in various ways by reference, not merely to ' Hooker ' and 

 ' Babington,' but to original definitions in the cases concerned ; and I 

 can testify to its accurate grasp of detail and broad conception alike ; 

 coming to the conclusion that in no work with which I am acquaint do 

 the specific and varietal names, as well or better indicate the ' equal values ' 

 of the growths for which they stand. 



The nomenclature is in accordance with the Vienna ordination ; and 

 one is as pleased to see that our Bladder Campion is once more the des- 

 criptive ' inflata ' rather than the misleading ' lati folia,' as sorry our 

 fugaceous common Rock-rose is still Helianthemiim chamcBcistns of Miller, 

 too, instead of Gaertner's ' vulgare,' as in the Index Kewensis. But Mr. 

 Druce admits ' no exceptions to the law of priority,' and so, one may 

 suppose, no concessions to sentiment and long usage. Yet may we be 

 thankful that our dear Daisy is still Bellis pevennis, no morphologist 

 having yet resolved its generic characteristics by dissection to some limbo 

 of the Archa^io. 



Of course, all such ' cribs ' to flower-names call for care from the 

 consulter, but it is not the weary temper-trying work it possibly looks 

 at a first glance. Keys to the species are omitted — they lead, in my ex- 

 perience, to isolation and identification of a name without understanding — 

 but those to the genera in each order are clearly contrasted ; and for the 

 rest a legitimate, orderly visualising in the mind of the exact meaning of 

 the terms set down, will enforce the light, whilst disguising the dose of the 

 physic lesson. This appears to me its truest claim to award. Perfunctory 

 consultation is hardly possible, and so delimited are the abbreviated 

 descriptions that for use in the actual field, a good platyscopic lens to eye, 

 it easily out-distances its only rival among British-printed manuals. It 

 goes without saying, of course, that its ' new ' matter puts it far in advance 

 of former editions ; till we get a compendious Bentham which shall 

 define for us the thousand-and-one aliens now to be found cheek-by-jowl 

 with indigens within the pale of almost every ' raw import ' factory of 

 the land from Campbelltown and Dundee to Deptford and Helston, the 

 description of which drawing attention to herbarium sheets ' sided ' away 

 as unknowns by the collector, will revive ' interest ' in the mummified, 

 and lead the gatherer to re-visit the old localities with a new pair of eyes. 

 In this world of dillusions simpling deserves a meed of more than cool 

 toleration as harmless, and there is in it that quality of making-young- 

 again, which calls more things to bloom and burgeon than just flower and 

 leaf. 



Among ' Natives,' old and newly defined, we have accurate diagnoses, 

 herein, for the first time of Viola montana L., said to be found in ' Hunts, 

 only ' (but I believe it has occurred in Lincoln) ; Viola calcavea Greg. ; 



Naturalist, 



