POPULAR BRITISH BOTANY 347 



" acre " of roses which are now only to be met with in one hedge. 

 — H. W. Lett. 



Silene conica in Surrey. — Mr. George Massee recently gave 

 me some plants of Silene conica, which were gathered by him on 

 Hockham Common, near Eipley, Surrey. I cannot find any 

 previous record of this species for the county, and it is very rare 

 in the adjoining counties of Kent and Sussex. From the nature 

 of the locality it is evidently indigenous in Surrey. — A. B. Jackson. 



€ 





NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Popular British Botany. 



* 



Flowers of the Field. By the Eev. C. A. Johns, B.A., F.L.S. 



Eevised throughout and edited by Clarence Elliott. 

 With 92 coloured illustrations by E. N. Gwatkin and 345 

 cuts in the text. 8vo, fancy cloth, pp. xx. 316. Price 

 7s. 6d. net. Eoutledge. 



Wild Floicers of the British Isles. Illustrated and written by 



H. Isabel Adams, F.L.S. Eevised by James E. Bagnall, 

 A.L.S. With 75 coloured plates. Demy 4to, pp. xv. 168. 

 Price 30s. net. Heinemann. 



Manual of British Grasses. By W. J. Gordon. With a coloured 



illustration of every species and many original diagrams by 

 J. T. Gordon. 8vo, pp. 180. Price 6s. net. Simpkin, 

 Marshall & Co. [1907.] 



The practice of reprinting early editions of books which have 

 passed out of copyright has been a subject of discussion in the 

 literary papers, especially in connection with the works of Ruskin, 

 which, at one time inaccessible to folk of small means, have now, 

 in their earlier forms, been brought within the reach of the most 

 limited purse. An instance of similar procedure is brought to our 

 notice by the publication by Messrs. Eoutledge of a new impression 

 of Floicers of the Field — a work which first appeared in 1853, and of 

 which a completed and thoroughly revised edition (the twenty-ninth) 

 was issued in 1899 by its original publishers, the Society for Pro- 

 moting Christian Knowledge, under the competent editorship of 

 Mr, Boulger. A notice of this edition appeared in this Journal 

 for 1900 (p. 195), and although we felt bound to express our 

 opinion that the S.P.C.K., which must have made a large income 

 from the previous editions, might well have paid greater attention 

 to numerous matters of detail, the usefulness of the book from a 

 botanical standpoint was duly recognized. 



No such tribute can be paid to the edition now issued by 

 Messrs. Eoutledge. The name of Mr. Clarence Elliott, who has 

 "edited and revised throughout/ ' is unfamiliar to us, but no 

 further testimony to his qualifications — or rather disqualifications 

 for the task is needed than that supplied by the volume itself. 

 His preface is a literary curiosity, as will be evident from the 



