3*7 



MANITOBAN FLOWERS. 



Plants of Manitoba [Anonymous]. Marcus Ward & Co. Ltd., London. 

 n.d. [but 1896. 1 os, 6d.] 



It is such 'a far cry' to Lake Winnepeg and the rainy belt of 

 Canadian Manitoba, albeit the province lies, practically, within the 

 same parallels as England, that the point of Art in execution is 

 about the only one in which it is profitable to view this Portfolio of 

 40 chromo plates — without any letterpress save a meagre numbered 

 'list of plants,' the figures on quarto cards not being numbered. 

 We regret not to be able to praise these, either for accuracy of 

 draughtsmanship, coloring, or precision in ' register.' To a botanist the 

 figures are rather artistically pretty than good ; and anyone else with 

 a keen sense of form in our wild flowers, turning over the leaves and 

 coming across the presentments of such common integers in our 

 flora as the Hairbell, or Couchgrass, would be very apt to be misled 

 into inferring what is not the fact — that the species of West Canada 

 were very different to those put under the same scientific name in 

 the mother-country. The watchet Hairbell {Campanula rotundifolia), 

 for example, never had in this world such full purple flowers, or such 

 stiff spoon-shaped root-leaves as are here figured ! The bloom-scape 

 of the Bird's Eye Primrose is fairly good, but the acuminated rosette 

 leaves indicated on the plate are an exaggerated, unhappy abortion. 

 The Silverweed {Potentilla anserina) also, is shockingly unlike the 

 same plant of our goose-greens, with flowers much too orange-red, 

 and leaves that might be those of the Rowan tree, rayed from 

 a centre with inconceivable - maladroitness. 



Another point: out of the forty pictured, ten are British, and 

 several of these not true natives of Manitoba at all ; shewing, at the 

 best, the work to be intended for eyes upon the spot. The wild 

 Mustard, our Charlock, is a tolerably good effigy, but the expediency 

 in plating it as a, presumably, characteristic wilding, whereas it is 

 only adventive from Europe, is doubtful It points a moral, 

 however: that the inception of the portfolio is due to a non- 

 discriminating botany. 



Another Introduction, the Penny Cress {Thlaspi arvense) of 

 our potato and turnip fields, is called ' French Weed/ inferentially 

 because a relic of the pioneer agriculture of our Gallic neighbours. 

 If correct, this is as interesting as it is new to us. 



The 'Canada' Thistle (' Cnicus arvense'), another weed brought 

 from the Old World, is, in fades, very unlike the same thing with 

 ; beine shewn without the creeping roots that make it so terribly 



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