THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 365 
one I-am watching the apie ahick appears to have 
inherited the perennial character of Taraxacum, sees I hope next 
year to sian good specimens in flower.  RaOEE DE. at 
YDRODICTYON RETICULATUM Lagerh.—In Aug ugust we found a 
abundance of this plant in the river Idle, in nr i Nottingham: 
shire, in the parish of Everton.—E. & H. Dras 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
The Royal Eons plete 8, Kew, Historical and Descriptive. 
By W. J. , Assistant Curator. With an Introduction by 
Sir OV iuitiar THIski sau iene K.C.M.G., &e., and 20 Re- 
productions in Colour from Paintings by H. A. Ontvier, and 
40. Half-Tone Plates from Photographs by E. J. Waxtis. 4to cl, 
pp. Xx, 222. Price 20s. Cassell & Co. 
In these days, when coloured pictures often form a more im- 
rtant feature in a book than the text which they are supposed 
to illustrate, it would have been easy to produce a volume on Kew 
Gardens in which the text should occupy a secondary place. 
This alwayér is by no means the case with the very handsome 
volume which Messrs. Cassell have recently issued. The illustra- 
tions are indeed, as they should be, attractive, but they are not 
overdone; and the book in no way depends upon them aed an interest 
which it would possess if pictures were entirely wanting. 
Mr. Bean has given us an extremely complete de of an 
institution which, as a Prime Minister Temarked to the its 
Director with somewhat faint praise, we “need not be ashame 
of.” He bis aor with the origin and development “Gf the Royal 
Gardens, from their early history to the present day, with bio- 
graphical sketches of the principal folk a ah a nye taken 
has conveyed his information, | the _acquirement “of “hich must 
have involved much varied r reading, i In a pleasant style in which 
brevity never leads to dulness; the book it in fact is eminently 
