II 



THE 'NEW BOTANY. 



Types of British Vegetation, edited by A. G. Tansley, M.A., F.L.S. 



With 36 plates, 8vo, pp. xx., 416. Cambridge University Press, 19 11. 

 Price 6/- net.. 



Ever since Richard Jefferies and other Papas of the plein air doctrine 

 took us, with their enthusiasms, into the wild, there has been a growing 

 vogue towards the beatification of country things. It has of late crept 

 into our Fiction. On the other hand, since 1904, from the perhaps almost 

 too strictly Academic side of Botany, following the late Robert Smith, 

 Messrs. and Doctors of Love- Wisdom, F. J. Lewis, C. E. Moss, W. M. 

 Rankin, W. G. Smith, and others, including our York men W. B. Crump, 

 S. Margerison, Geo. West, and T. W. Woodhead — )iot all official members 

 of the 'Central Committee,' the work of Systematic Vegetational Survey, 

 with more or less expert eyes, has gone on : the well-digested and ably 

 arranged result being this tome of ' Types ' ! The work of all those named 

 above is not proclaimed aloud, but it is there, for those who know, never- 

 theless. It makes a difficult book to review, since with neither desire 

 to pick, nor possibility of picking holes in the fabric — the wonderful, living 

 carpet of Nature, there is little but a sort of struck-dumb praise to be 

 accorded ! 



The materialising of the work must have been as tiresome at times as 

 at others most fascinating ; but for one angel of Light to aid : photography 

 to the Rescue, as 'Every Picture tells a Story,' and really greatly enhances 

 the value of the book, which no doubt will presently be in the hands of 

 every Council School Teacher who takes his Nature-Class into the open. 

 ' Types,' I think, must ultimately become the availing classic of its subject, 

 and is certainly much better adapted than any other IManual I know for 

 enabling the rank-and-file field-naturalist to find the excelsior charm in 

 understanding what he sees, all seasons alike, whenever he takes his walks 

 abroad. 



Space will hardly allow of quotation, but there are two dainty data 

 one must allude to as samples of interdependences marvellously inspiring 

 to the mind. On pages 105-6, discussing the spread of the golden gorse 

 on a lingmoor, attention is drawn to Weiss 's observation of the part insects 

 may play in dispersal : the partiality Ants shew for the seeds of the Ulex, 

 carrying them off for the bright orange oily caruncle ' which they bite 

 and tear as they push the seed along.' Again on p. 151, the amity (as it 

 were), which exists between the ' complementarj^ association ' (as Dr. 

 T. W. \\'oodhead called it), of Dog's Mercury and Gloriless Moschatcl, often 

 seen on dryish Dell-drained wood slopes. The Mercury roots strike down 

 to a lower layer of soil than the Adoxa, its delicate superficial shoots re- 

 ceiving the shade and protection it must have from the relatively Brob- 

 dignagian proportions of Mercurialis. The roots of the two species are 

 said to be ' edaphically complementary,' and the shoots seasonally com- 

 plementary because by ]\Iidsummer, Adoxa has \vilted modestly away 

 for its nine months' period of dormanc3^ 



Critical fault-finding must be conspicuous by its absence. Well proof- 

 read, and fully indexed, there are only three unimportant errata ; and 

 one omission — a neglect to acknowledge W. B. Crump as the contributor 

 of the six beautiful photographs making up plates 9, 13, and 25. The 

 work of Dr. T. W. Woodhead seems rather inadequately referred to on 

 p. 151, in the curt phrase ' Wliat Woodhead terms'! But, indeed, the 

 work is full of brand new terms as befits a brand new botany ; the suffix 

 turn (?) Aryan root ta (place set apart for), on the plan of Arboretum, I 

 suppose, is done to derision almost ; Callunetum, Fagetum, Nardetum, 

 Quercetum to indicate the type or dominal factor in a natural or planted 

 association over a tract, is a terminologic innovation, the wit of which 

 lies in its brevity, one must suppose, since it is not beautiful. 



F. A. Lees. 

 igi2 Jan. r. 



