58 Revie7vs and Book Notices. 



defect is that one can find out the rarer plants, but not the 

 common ones, which, after all, give the landscape its character 

 from the botanical point of view. It was, therefore, no easy 

 task which la}- before the author of a Flora of the East 

 Riding-. In the Floras of the North and West Ridings the list 

 of species is important, but the preliminary chapters are, at 

 least, equal in importance. In the ' Flora of the East Riding,' 

 now published, the list of species is of much greater importance 

 than the first fifty pages of preliminary matter. No attempt is 

 made to utilise the details collected in seventeen years to 

 advance any problem in distribution. The East Riding may 

 lack the variety of hill-vegetation found in the North and West 

 Ridings, but it has its own points of interest. It has a rich 

 aquatic vegetation contrasting with a very dry ' Wold ' 

 vegetation ; it has glacial sands sharply defined from the 

 moist, cool boulder-clays ; it has sea cliff's, estuarine mud 

 alluvial, and dry sea-coast sands, each with its own type of 

 plant-life. The hurried and general reference to these types of 

 vegetation is not of much use to one unfamiliar with the Riding 

 who may be in search for information. The author seems to 

 have some distinct ideas about maritime and estuarine floras 

 (see p. 36), but his notes do not allow us to discover which are 

 the 24 maritime species, which the 23 estuarine. The absence 

 of any elevation above 800 feet is considered a sufficient reason 

 for the omission of altitudinal range'of plants. Altitude records 

 may be deceptive, because a single station may raise the range 

 of a species far above the normal range, but they are useful ; 

 in our own case we looked to this Flora with eagerness to verify 

 or control a little investigation on the range of aquatic plants 

 begun in ' North Yorkshire,' but this could not be done. The 

 question of indigenous versus introduced plants is an important 

 one in the East Riding. The list of escapes, etc. (pp. 47-53), 

 chiefly from Hull Docks, is therefore appropriate and will solve 

 many a puzzling find. It would, however, have been judicious 

 to give reasons in some cases for the statement ' native ' or 

 otherwise. Thus the Beech tree is given as native. In ' North 

 Yorkshire' it is given as a denizen, although occurrence as a 

 native is suggested ; in ' West Yorkshire ' it is allowed to be 

 native only on the Permian tract. It is thus obvious that in or 

 near East Yorkshire we have the boundary limit of the Beech ; 

 it is a question which has been raised frequently, and we should 

 have liked to see it discussed rather more in detail. The map 

 of the East Riding provided with the book is on too small 



Naturalist, 



