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REVIEWS 



A few of the botanical names given will be new to most botanists. These changes are due either to com- 

 pliance with the international rules of botanical nomenclature, e.g. Calamagrostis stricta instead of C. neglecta 

 and Bromus diandrus instead of Bromus gussonii, or to a new generic position, as in Catapodium marinum 

 and C. rigidum (cf. Dony, Flora of Bedfordshire, 1953). In some instances the author has considered some 

 grasses, treated as subspecies in the Flora of the British Isles, as separate species, e.g. Festuca tenuifolia, 

 Poa angustifolia and P. subcaerulea. He has included Koeleria albescens under K. gracilis and Poa irrigata 

 (P. pratensis subsp. irrigata) under P. subcaerulea. All these changes are well-grounded. It should be menti oned 

 that the author has not followed Tutin in the splitting of the genus Bromus. 



Special attention has been paid to the sterile inter- and intra-generic hybrids recorded from the British 

 Isles. There are mentioned 8 intergeneric hybrids, viz. Agrostis x Polypogon (1), Ammophila x Calamagrostis 

 (1), Festuca x Lolium (5) and Festuca x Vulpia (1); the latter is a new addition to the British flora. Since 

 the publication of this book, Hubbard and Sandwith (cf. Proc. B.S.B.I., 1, 387, 1954) have added to them 

 another intergeneric hybrid, Agropyron x Hordeum (the putative parents of which are Agropyron repens and 

 Hordeum secalinum). Hubbard discusses also about 24 interspecific hybrids, between species of the genera 

 Agropyron, Agrostis, Alopecurus, Bromus, Festuca, Glyceria, Poa and Puccinellia. 



The list of species treated in this book is nearly complete. Of native species, only Bromus benekeni, which 

 has been neglected in all recent British works, may be added to it. 



The author is to be congratulated on this contribution to our knowledge of British grasses which deserves 

 the greatest admiration. It is a standard work which will never lose its importance to students either in 

 Britain or abroad. It is very cheap, but its scientific value is very high. This book can be unreservedly 

 recommended for use not only to botanists, but also to agriculturists, horticulturists, teachers, students and 

 to all beginners who wish to learn this group of plants. 



A, Melderis 



Origin and distribution of the British flora. J. R. Matthews. Pp. vi + 167, 6 maps in text. Hutchinson's 

 University Library, London, 1955. 8s. 6d. 



Professor Matthews has presented in a very convenient form an excellent summary of the work carried 

 out during the last fifty years by quaternary geologists, plant geographers, and the workers in that relatively 

 new, but by now well-known, field of pollen analysis to which Godwin and his students have contributed 

 so much. This book gives a brief survey of the British flora of pre-glacial times, and then deals with the 

 effects of the Ice Age with its glacial and inter-glacial periods, the re-establishment of the flora in late- and 

 post-glacial times as seen chiefly by the study of macroscopic sub-fossils and pollen grains in peat, the changes 

 in distribution which have taken place in historical times, and the study of the present flora as geographical 

 elements which may be related to their continental distribution. 



A word of caution should perhaps have been offered so that the reader does not assume that the remains 

 in the Cromer Forest Bed were necessarily preserved in situ, for geologists are by no means unanimous on 

 this point, as some of the wood in the deposits shows signs of being considerably water-worn, and it may, 

 therefore, have been carried with some of the fruits from what is now continental Europe and deposited in one 

 of the quiet backwaters near the mouth of the original Rhine, to become preserved with some genuine members 

 of the British flora. 



According to Tutin and Warburg (/. Bot., 1932) the species of Sibthorpia in the Azores is S. africana 

 and not S. europaea as stated in Chapter III. It is to be regretted that the recent paper by Pigott and Walters 

 on discontinuous distributions of species of open habitats in thefournal of Ecology did not receive more than 

 a bare mention in connection with the possibly more widespread distribution in Britain of the members of 

 the continental southern element. 



This book has been well produced within the limits set by a low-priced edition, with the exception of 

 Map 1 which was poorly reproduced in several copies which were examined, and it would have been a great 

 help to have had the titles of the papers in the list of references. 



P. J. Wanstall 



