POPULAR BRITISH BOTANY 349 



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newspaper press are usually written without expert knowledge, 

 and thus mislead ; the Westminster Gazette, for example, from whicli 

 better things might be expected, thinks the edition " altogether a 

 very desirable one." 



The quarto volume entitled Wild Flowers of the British Isles, 

 illustrated and written by Mrs. H. Isabel Adams, and revised by 

 Mr. Bagnall, is in every respect a beautiful book. The coloured 

 plates fully justify the statement that they "constitute a triumpl 

 for modern methods of colour-printing," and testify both to the 

 artistic skill and botanical knowledge of their author. We have 

 seldom if ever seen the substance, so to speak, and the habit of 

 the plants rendered with such accuracy as in such instances as 

 the Marsh Marigold and the Wallflower, to name only two among 

 many ; although here and there the plates are a little too much 

 crowded and the colours somewhat too subdued. Mrs. Adams not 

 only draws well, but her caligraphy is excellent ; the characters 

 of the orders were in some cases written on the plates, and the 

 names are always given in the same elegant lettering. No greater 

 contrast could be found than that existing between these careful 

 studies from life and the feeble prettiness — not always even that — 

 of the plates referred to in the preceding notice. 



The descriptions are short, but careful and sufficient, as might 

 be expected in a book submitted to Mr. Bagnall' s revision ; type 

 and paper are excellent, binding elegant and suitable. If it were 

 complete, it would be in every way a desirable possession — indeed, 

 it is so now. But we should not be doing our duty to our readers 

 if we did not point out that the work is incomplete — only the 

 orders down to and including Composites are included, but nowhere 

 do we find any mention of its limits, nor any indication that 

 another volume is in contemplation. 



Mr. Gordon's book on Grasses will not, we think, greatly 

 facilitate the study of the order, partly because of its extra- 

 ordinary arrangement, which renders it almost impossible to 

 consult. Three "chapters" are devoted respectively to an "index 

 to species, including synonyms," an "index to genera" and an 

 " index to customary names " ; to these last two chapters (iii. and 

 xiii.) are devoted, the former referring to the plates — though this 

 is not stated — which themselves are not lettered. But the figures 

 appended to the names in these indexes do not refer to the pages 

 on which the plant is described, but to the number it bears in 

 "Chapter ii. List of British Grasses," which list contains no 

 reference to the body of the work ! Thus " Oryzoides, Leersia, 1," 

 " Leersia 1," " Rice Grass, 1," and others merely indicate that 

 the plant is numbered 1 in the list on p. 11 ! It is only 

 by hunting through the book — for no cross-references are any- 

 where given — that we find that the genus is described on p. 61, 

 the species on p. 108, each also appearing in the "tabular view" 

 on pp. 140, 143 ! Anyone, therefore, wishing to use the book 

 must first sit down and make a practicable index. 



The " index to species " contains a large and absolutely useless 

 number of names which find no mention anywhere in the book — 



