Florisfs Magazine. 4.25 



REVIEWS, 



Art. L The Florist's Magazine ; a Register of the netvest and most 

 beautiful Varieties of Florist's Flowers .• dratvn from Nature, en- 

 graved and coloured in the most finished Style. By F. W. Smith. 

 With popular Descriptions and Practical Directions for their Culti- 

 vation. To be continued monthly. No. I., July, 1835. Royal 

 4to, 4 coloured plates, and 8 pages of letterpress. 4*. 



The subjects of the plates are these: — In plate 1., the Rosi- 

 nante and Amelia pelargoniums, two varieties, raised by Mr. 

 Dennis. In pi. 2., Page's champion auricula. In pi. 3., glo- 

 riosa superba, and bouquet pourpre, hyacinths. In pi. 4., rose 

 camuse de Craiz tulip. We think that the figures are of a 

 superior order, in both disposition and execution, and that they 

 are skilfully coloured. The descriptive matter is excellent : it 

 includes ideas botanical, poetical, and historical, besides a suffi- 

 cient proportion, as we think, of those proper to the province of 

 the florist. We are gratified in the proofs of the author's ability 

 to attract, about the subjects of his work, associations so pleasing, 

 and to describe these associations so ably. We wish that his 

 undertaking may obtain that support from the public which may 

 encourage him to proceed in the performance of it. 



We gratify our vanity in noting a few imperfections, as they 

 seem to us to be. In contrasting the characteristics of the genera 

 Pelargonium, Geranium, and Erodium, the character, in Pelar- 

 gonium, of the nectary adnate to the pedicel, should not have 

 been omitted ; in the character of Geranium, it would have pro- 

 moted clearness to call the corolla of Geranium, bell-shaped, or 

 basin-shaped. The expression "asweetly growing shrubby plant," 

 does not inform us of the modeof growth. We feel, or fancy, some 

 imperfection in the peduncle of the auricula, in its attitude, or in 

 the mode of connecting it with the umbel of flowers. The word 

 Primulacese is used by the author in the sense of the word Pri- 

 mulas : these are " among the earliest beauties of the year ; " 

 some of the Primulacese are not in this case. Under hyacinth, 

 " suaves," should be " suave." The hyacinth of Theocritus and 

 Ovid has been deemed identical with, not the iJyacinthus ori- 

 entalis of modern botany, but the rocket larkspur (Delphinium 

 Ajaci^) ; see De Candolle's Regn. Veget. Syst. Nat., i. 342, 343., 

 and the upper part of the corolla of this species of plant ; a white 

 single corolla is, we believe, fittest : characters more or less like 

 the letters AI AI may be perceived there. J, Hogg, Esq., has, 

 in his " Observations on some of the Classical Plants of Sicily," 

 published in Hooker's Botanical Journal, argued that Z). pubes- 

 cens is rather the species which had been intended. On the 

 tulip, should not " tulipmania " be " tulipomania," or " tuhp 



