BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 383 



shire, where, in or about 1867, it occurred in the canal at Ayles- 

 bury in such masses that it had to be removed in carts. The next 

 *' abstract " is a note on [Mr. Druce's] " exhibits on 16th Novem- 

 ber 1911," which should surely have appeared in its place in the 

 account of the meeting, where, indeed, reference is made to it — 

 "Phyllody in Trifolium " isso frequent and so generally known that 

 the " abstract " relating to it was hardly w^orth printing. The fifth 

 "abstract" on "The Palseographical Eelations of Antarctica" 

 occupies eleven pages ; it would be interesting to know in what 

 way this differs from a " paper," or why it is excluded from the 

 Society's Journal. The most important and interesting of the 

 contents is however the " Index to the Linnean Herbarium," 

 prepared by Dr. Jackson, extending over 150 pages. This must 

 form the subject of a future note. 



Under the title Nervation of Plants (Williams & Norgate, 

 3s. 6d.) Mr. Francis George Heath, described as " the well-known 

 author of The Fern World, The Fern Paradise, &c.," presents a 

 volume which it is claimed " will be found of deep and absorbing 

 interest to all intellectual readers." Mr. Heath has a facile pen 

 and a limited knowledge of botany, apparently acquired from not 

 always very up-to-date books and articles. " The word tissue," 

 he tells us (p. 2), "is synonymous with fabric. It means, in this 

 sense, the substance of which a plant is composed; and that 

 substance is an aggregation of vessels." The liber or bast " is 

 familiar to most people in the form of the long, narrow light 

 brown strips used for tying plants. It varies much in different 

 plants, but undoubtedly performs a most useful office as a soft 

 lining to the rough outer bark, as a hard textured protection for 

 the more delicate inner cells, and as a useful ' purveyor ' of sap, 

 which flows readily along its surface as well as through its thin 

 walled cells. It therefore reteeives from the cambium at all 

 points what that wonderful cylinder has to convey " (p. 67). 

 The book is full of this sort of stuff. 



Die Formender OrchidaceenDeutschlands, Deutsch-Oesterreichs 

 und der Schtveiz, by Walter Zimmermann (Selbstverlag des 

 Deutschen Apotheker-Vereins, Berlin), is a handy guide to the 

 determination of the genera, species, varieties and forms of the 

 Central European Orchids by means of a series of keys. Descrip- 

 tions (in German) are given of each species; these are followed, in 

 each case, by a key for determination of the variety or form, and 

 by notes on the distribution of the species and its subdivisions. 

 Sixty-eight species are included, and a large number of varieties 

 and forms. We note that the author regards Orchis as masculine. 

 The small size of the book, 6| by 4^ inches and one-sixth of an 

 inch in thickness, renders it a very portable aid to collectors of 

 Swiss or German orchids. 



Messrs. Methuen & Co. send us a handsome quarto volume 

 (21s.) on Jajxinese Gardens, by Mrs. Basil Taylor, which owes 

 much of its attractiveness to the twenty-eight pictures in colour, 

 by Mr. Walter Tyndale, by which it is illustrated. The various 

 aspects of Japanese gardening are dealt with in eighteen chapters. 



