BRITISH PLANTS 29 



South African distribution is carefully worked out, and there are 

 numerous critical notes showing minute and accurate knowledge. 

 The genera most fully represented are Disa (28 species), Euloijliia 

 (19 species, one new — E. Pillansii), Satyrmm (13 species), and 

 Holothrix (8 species) ; another novelty is Mystacidmm Alicice, 

 named in compliment to Miss Alice Pegler, its discoverer, to whom 

 M. PeglercB had already been dedicated. 



British Plants : their Biology and Ecology. By J. F. Bevis, B.A., 

 B.Sc, & H. J. Jeffery, A.E.C.Sc, F.L.S. Pp. xii, 334. 

 London : Alston Rivers. 1911. Price 4s. 6d. net. 

 This is a good specimen of modern botany, which is nothing 

 if not scientific. The days are past when books on botany 

 habitually indulged in purple patches, eked out with scraps of 

 rhyme and other irrelevancies. Now, we have gone almost to the 

 other extreme, and readers are presented with a mass of technical 

 terms, which are doubtless highly instructive, but, especially for 

 beginners, by no means attractive. It might even be w^ell, 

 especially in days when not many are sufficiently well acquainted 

 with Greek to trace the meaning of words derived from that 

 tongue, with which they meet on every page, to furnish a handy 

 glossary of terms, such as are abundantly used in the work before 

 us; as, for instance — to say nothing of "Ecology" itself, which 

 appears in the title — "Hygrophyte," "Tropophyte," "Xerophyte," 

 " Geophyte," " Mesophyte," " Sclerenchyma," and many others. 

 No doubt such terms are useful and even necessary, and their 

 signification is not difficult to gather by those possessed of a 

 moderate amount of scholarship. It cannot be denied, however, 

 that their constant employment must have a tendency to scare 

 away those who are apt to complain of the hard words w^iich they 

 suppose to be inseparable from the study of botany. 



It would, however, be a pity should such a notion stand in 

 the way of the service which the book before us is calculated to 

 render to young botanists, for it abounds in accurate informa- 

 tion, clearly and tersely put, and is well supplied with useful 

 illustrations. Many details are given of the manner in which 

 plants are adapted to the most diverse habitats. In it wall be 

 found various sections which may well attract the attention 

 of the general reader. In particular may be specified those 

 on Parasites, including — confining ourselves to British plants — ■ 

 Toothwort, Dodder, and Mistletoe, and insect-eaters — such as 

 Sundew, Butterw^ort, and Bladderwort. In this latter connection 

 is repeated the familiar story of the Arum and the flies, which 

 will not be found very easy to verify by observation. It is like- 

 wise impHed (p. 174) that bees habitually confine their visits to 

 one species of flower at a time, which is not in accord with our 

 own experience. Darwin is said (p. 292) to have died in 1888, 

 instead of six years earlier, and his Natural Selection theory is 

 spoken of as though it were still generally accepted as the expla- 

 nation of evolution. 



