246 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



But we are mindful of the adage about glass houses. If every 

 text-book were to be judged by its defects, what would be the fate 

 of even the best ? It may seem but small praise to say that in the 

 present instance they are greatly outweighed by its merits.^ Set- 

 ting aside the portion devoted to the ulterior classification of 

 flowering plants, the book is one with which the student may feel 

 himself safe, and which will no doubt obtain the wide circulation 

 which will be greatly helped by the easy and "English" style of 

 translation, A. W. B. 



A Monograph of the genus LUium. By H. J. Elwes, F.L.S., F.Z.S, 



Illustrated by W. H. Fitch, A.L.S. Seven parts folio, with 

 forty-eight coloured plates. London, 1880. B. H. Porter. 

 6, Tenterden Street, Hanover Square. 



This is a very fine work, both from a botanical and artistic 

 point of view. It contains a coloured plate, folio size, drawn by 

 Fitch, of every known species and the principal varieties of Lily, 

 with a Latin description and popular account of the plant, and a 

 sketch of its history, geographical distribution, and cultural and 

 climatic requirements. As every one knows, a great impulse has 

 lately been given to the cultivation of Lilies, and we now know 

 far more about them than we did twenty, or even ten years ago. 

 Nearly all the plates of Lilies that have previously appeared have 

 been very incomplete and unsatisfactory, partly because it requires 

 folio size to do a Lily justice. But here we have the whole series, 

 about fifty in number, drawn upon a uniform scale, upon a large 

 enough size, by the man best fitted to deal with them, and the 

 result is one of the most sumptuous botanical monographs that has 

 ever appeared. The leaves and flowers have been carefully 

 coloured from nature, and pains has been taken to make the 

 plates as complete as possible by including the bulbs and capsules, 

 which are very needful for a full understanding of the species, but 

 have previously been almost altogether neglected. The author, 

 Mr. Elwes, is an ornithologist of great experience, who has seen 

 service in India, and since his retirement from the army has 

 devoted himself specially to the cultivation of petaloid monoco- 

 tyledons, of which he has now, in his garden at Preston, near 

 Cirencester, one of the finest collections in existence. For several 

 years he has been a member of the Council of the Boyal Horticul- 

 tural Society, and a leading contributor to their shows, so that a 

 considerable proportion of the plates have been drawn from 

 specimens grown in his own garden, and he has been brought into 

 constant contact and correspondence with the principal cultivators 

 at home and abroad, he having been helped ungrudgingly by such 

 men as "Wilson and Leichtlin in Europe, and Horey, Pringle, 

 Hanson, and Sarjeant in America. He has tested under cultiva- 

 tion the validity of the critical forms, and has visited frequently 

 the principal establishments in England and on the Continent 

 where Lilies are grown on a grand scale, with the result of 

 reducing some of those which were considered as species to the 

 rank of varieties. Botanists are not at all likely to quarrel with 



