152 



NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



Veeateum Maximowiczii, Baker (ColchicacejB). — Japan. 

 (Journ. Linn. Soc, xvii., 472.) 



Viola hirtipes, 8. Moore (Violaceae). — N. China. (Journ. 

 Linn. Soc, xvii., 379.) 



Zingiber coloratum, N.E.Brown (Zmgiberaceae). — N. W. 

 Borneo. (Gartl. Chron., ii., p. 166.) 



European Ferns. By James Britten, F.L.S. With Coloured 



Illustrations from Nature by D. Blair, F.L.S. London : 

 Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 



This is the title of a work now being issued in parts, and 

 which is intended to bring before the student those species of 

 Ferns wbich are natives of Europe. There is no illustrated book 

 which occupies the same ground. We have many works with 

 illustrations varying from woodcuts to nature-prints, representing 

 the Ferns of the British Isles, but there are none which take in the 

 Ferns of the surrounding continent. This is no doubt a recom- 

 mendation to the present work from the publisher's point of view. 



The book is projected as a popular, not a scientific, treatise, and 

 to this fact, as we take it, is to be attributed what we regard as its 

 weakest point. The coloured plates, we are told, are its special 

 characteristic, and these coloured plates have been made into 

 pictures in a manner which interferes with their utility. They are 

 reduced figures of the ferns in situ ; and the reduction of the larger 

 species necessary to bring them within the size of the plates, 

 though the page is a quarto, so far alters their appearance, that 

 they do not present to the eye such a picture of the plant as would 

 always serve to secure the recognition of the original. This is no 

 fault of the artist's ; he has drawn his subjects accurately enough, 

 but as we think always happens a reduced coloured figure, unlike 

 a reduced woodcut, does not give an accurate notion of the original, 

 it would have been better to have introduced woodcuts showing 

 the character and habit of each plant, and a coloured portion, as 

 much as the size of the page would allow, natural size, showing its 

 lorm its mode of division, and its fructification. In other respects 

 the hgures are quite satisfactory ; those of the smaller species, 

 winch are of the natural size, are indeed very good, and make one 

 ail the more regret that in some of the other plates, Davallia 

 canarienm in particular, the greater amount of work in the 

 diminished figure has been expended with so imperfect and 

 unsatisfactory a result. 



™ n J h A d ? si S n ° f tlie b ook being popular, the text is of course 

 worked out on the popular plan. The scientific style is altogether 

 oiopped ; no technical generic or specific characters are given, but 

 instead there is given a plain and easy and carefully written 

 description of the plant, while a notice of the geographical distri- 

 bution of each affords material for an interesting paragraph. A 

 note, as a heading to the chanter on «urfi ^„» ~£w the chief 



