398 Scientific Intelligence. 



9. The Flora of Cheshire (400 pp., 8vo, Longmans, Green 

 & Co.) is a carefully prepared work compiled by Mr. Spencer 

 Moore from the manuscripts of the late Lord de Tabley. The 

 extraordinary versatility of the author is well portrayed in an 

 introductory biographical sketch. Chiefly known as a poet, dram- 

 atist, and novelist, Lord de Tabley found time to write seriously 

 upon the federal coinage of Ancient Greece, produce a note- 

 worthy work upon bookplates, and prepare the botanical manu- 

 scripts of remarkable detail from which the present posthumous 

 work has been compiled. The Flora contains neither technical 

 descriptions nor keys. There is a careful physico-botanical 

 account of the different sections of the region covered, a list of 

 and some notes upon the persons concerned in the past with 

 Cheshire botany, an extensive list of works consulted, and finally 

 the body of the catalogue, which is restricted to the spermato- 

 phytes, pteridophytes, and Oharacece. In looking over its pages 

 one is impressed chiefly by the extraordinary minuteness and 

 detail with which habitats and stations have been recorded. A 

 single instance chosen at random will suffice to show the nature 

 of the work in this regard. One of the meadow grasses is said 

 to be "Plentiful in one spot on the shore of the Dee near Park- 

 gate (destroyed in this locality, 1854); amongst shingle and 

 at the base of the wall in the first field enclosure north of Park- 

 gate; in the sandy tract commencing under the garden wall of 

 the house at Old Quay a mile south of Parkgate ; and seen now 

 and again between the colliery and the gravel pit on that side of 

 Benton Point, 1873." While all this may be of some interest to 

 the local observer for whom, of course, it was primarily intended 

 — if indeed the author ever expected that it would see light in 

 print — yet, considered as a scientific publication, it' runs far into 

 the realm of the casual, if not the trivial. There is, further- 

 more, no synonymy, little bibliography except in relation to 

 ranges, and finally a curious lack of those comparative or descrip- 

 tive notes upon local varieties, in fact, of observations upon the 

 plants themselves aside from their abundance and stations. 

 In all these respects this stout volume is almost as barren as a 

 mere list would be. b. l. r. 



10. A preliminary list of the Spermatophyta of North Dakota ; 

 by Henry L. Bollet and Lawrence R. Waldron (Bulletin 

 No. 46 of the North Dakota Experiment Station). — No catalogue 

 of the plants of North Dakota has heretofore been published and 

 the present list is thus a piece of pioneering work. As such it 

 will, notwithstanding its manifest and frankly confessed incom- 

 pleteness, prove useful. It is furthermore of no small interest as 

 showing for the first time in concise form the general nature of 

 the vegetation in what is, as to its floral conditions, probably 

 the most uniform of our larger states. A striking character- 

 istic noticeable in the vegetation, as shown in this catalogue, is 

 that nearly all of the species are those of wide range, endemic or 

 truly local plants being almost unknown in the state. Another 



