THE STUDY OF WILD FLOWERS. 
How to Rages! | tester! bags) x | by the | Rev. GrorGe HENsLow, M.A., 
F.L.S., etc. | For the Use of Schools and Rigs Students. | With 57 
ea ae Rit, 5. 1 1896 [Cr. 8vo. cl. pp. 2 3 
To appreciate this littlke work adequately to its merits would be to 
eulogise it in one of equal length. Not to newly exemplify ‘the 
olly of Praise,’ we can only (but with good conscience) advise all 
interested in learning or teaching Botany to buy and use this. To 
the didletante botaniste of the ladies’ school it should prove a godsend, 
with its attractive insistence upon accuracy in observation, from the 
simplest thing upwards. The author—an old teacher known to fame 
for the infectious nature of his con amore methods—very justly points 
out at start, that the great use of botany in schools is ‘the t ae 
the young mind in systematic observation and accurate habits’ ; his 
i. ondered ; met 
Plus manner, and the Parnassus elsewise unattainable is reached. 
The fire may be ever so well ‘ laid,’ but without the match it cannot 
title sufficiently indicates the aim and scope of the book. 
ce) 
ewo m 
are taken one by one, through all the orders ; and the remarks upon 
each are marvels of judicious compression, the aids to examination 
and dissection of the floral envelopes concise and accurate. One 
omission only strikes us: under Primulacez, there is no mention of 
the unique seven-stamened Wintergreen ( 77/entfa/is), nor is the normal 
five-part Lysimachia (common enough either as ZL. xummudaria or 
L. nemorum) of which it may be a specialised development, alluded 
to, and the striking and frequent Flowering Rush (Bzfomus) with its 
nine stamens, gets no special mention under Alismacez. 
The difficult thing for a critic in the case of this work is to ferret 
a century of practical study. The critic, in self-defence, would like 
to take one short paragraph as an instructive example. Not to pick, 
he opens at page 172, and there we find 
‘1. Men'tha sylves’tris, Horse-mint. The genus Mentha has 7 species, and 
a large number of sub- species, according to Hooker’s arrangement. They are 
Strongly-scented ; more than one has the odour of hg phony, as the common 
sige AL, aquatica, and the true e peppermint, JZ. officinalis. The horse-mint 
is Tare in England, being the commonest in the East, as Palestine, where it is 
a 1897. 
