868 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. |. [Vor. XXXV. 
The prospectus of this proffered work, curiously enough, raises a 
question that may bother the botanical nomenclaturists, for Pl. II 
and the accompanying text depict and describe what is called a new 
species in that much-vexed genus Cretzgus, so that when the initial 
number of the publication appears it will doubtless be found neces- 
sary to refer in it to this prior distribution of the species referred to. 
T. 
Flowers and Ferns in their Haunts.' — Where to draw the line 
between pleasant summer reading and didactic literature is often 
hard to decide, and yet when we go to the country there is a limit 
to what our trunks will carry, so that some kind of discrimination 
becomes necessary. This pretty little book will hardly come amiss, 
from whichever point of view selected, though it may not hold the 
attention of the reader like a novelette nor suit the needs of a class 
in botany; but through its pages runs a chatty narrative that is pleas- 
ing, and the illustrations show much that can be done by aid of the 
camera when intelligently used. T. 
The Dictionary of Gardening.? — As was stated in the Naturalist 
for November, 1900, the excellent Dictionary of Gardening of Mr. 
George Nicholson, curator of the famous Kew Gardens, which for 
years has been the reference book for gardeners wherever English is 
read, has had planned for it a supplement, bringing it up to the end 
of the century. The first volume of this supplement appeared in 
June, 1900, and a second volume, completing it, was distributed in 
July of the present year. 
No more favorable place than Kew could be found for the elabo- 
ration of a compendious work.on cultivated plants and the most "e 
cessful ways of growing them. Not far from 25,000 species are said 
to be cultivated there. Kew is probably freer than any other estab- 
lishment in the world from the common fault of botanic gardens, that 
the collections are grown uncritically under whatever names are 
attached to them when they are procured; and the very common, if 
often necessary, defect of botanical gardening, that a great variety of 
plants requiring dissimilar treatment are huddled together into à 
! Wright, Mabel Osgood. Flowers and Ferns im their Haunts, with illustra- 
tions from photographs by the author and J. Horace McFarland. New York, 
The Macmillan Company, 1901. xix + 358 pp 
? Nicholson, George. The Century Supplement to the Dictionary of Garden 
ing, a practical encyclopedia of horticulture for gardeners and botanists. George 
T. King; Hyde Park, Mass. 
