THF-: ORCHID WORf.n. 
ic I 
Flora of Jamaica. Vol. I., " Orchidacese." 
By William Fawcett, B.Sc, F.L.S, and 
Alfred Barton Rendle, M.A., D.Sc, 
F.R.S., F.L.S. (Longmans and Co., Pater- 
noster Row, London.) 
In this carefully prepared work the reader 
has the advantage of the continuous study of 
the orchids of Jamaica by Mr. Wil'lam Fawcett 
during his twenty-one years of residence in 
the island while Director of the Public Gar- 
dens and Plantations, the collaboration of Dr. 
A. B. Rendle, Keeper of the Department of 
Botany of the British Museum (Natural His- 
tory), and the most complete set of herbarium 
specimens of Jamaican plants ever got 
together, and which have been carefully 
studied and compared with the references in 
each case by the authors, the resulting work 
being well worthy of the honour of being 
issued as a British Museum catalogue. 
In the Introduction the authors give a most 
complete and concise account of the island of 
Jamaica, its geological structure, elevation, 
rainfall, and other climatic peculiarities, to- 
gether with an account of some of the remark- 
able features of its plant distribution, a number 
of species being endemic, while some others 
are found only within a restricted area. 
The extreme value of the work will be 
grasped when it is seen that a large number 
of species had not been previously identified 
and are here described, and in most cases 
illustrated, by the authors, the genus Lepan- 
thes alone providing a dozen new species. 
Two new genera are also made, viz., Neo- 
Urbania adendrobium Fawc. and Rendle 
(Ponera adendrobium Reichb. f.), and Harri- 
sella porrecta Fawc. and Rendle (^ranthus 
]wrrectus Reichb. f.). 
Sixty-two genera, with a total of 194 
species, are enumerated, many of them showy, 
well known in gardens, and among them are 
Phaius grandifolius, enumerated as Phaius 
Tancarvillea, following Blume (1856), in order 
to incorporate the doubly erroneous Limo- 
dorum Tancarvillea? Banks ex L'Herit. Sert. 
Angl. 28 (1788), and which, although not a 
species truly indigenous in Jamaica, is so com- 
monly distributed as to render its enumeration 
VOL, I. 
imperative ; and, moreover, the Jamaican 
variety is the most beautiful known ; and 
Oncidium tetrapetalum recorded as O. gutta- 
tum to combine Cymbidium guttatum Willd. ; 
while Oncidium guttatum Reichb. f. (O. lun- 
dum var. guttatum Lindl.) is retained as typical 
O. luridum, although the Jamaican plant is 
florally superior to the smaller and usually 
dull-coloured O. luridum of other localities, 
and IS generally considered distinct in gardens 
at least. 
There are 32 plates, most of them depicting 
several species and their parts, many prepared 
from drawings made from living specimens by 
Miss Helen Wood, under Mr. Fawcett's direc- 
tion. It may be said that the work is as com- 
plete as possible, and will be a standard book 
of reference for all time. 
J. O'B. 
P SI 
Martius' Flora Brasiliensis. — The 
Trustees of the Lindley Library have recently 
purchased a copy of this monumental work 
on Brazilian orchids. It has been published 
in ten parts, the first being issued in 1893, 
the last in 1906. Altogether there are 372 
plates, the majority having several orchids 
figured on each, and 1,940 pages of letter- 
press. The published price is £^34. 
^Ji .f^S .'^■'S 
!ig 1^ 
The annual march of the Orchid was one of 
the many wonders of Nature described by Mr. 
F.Martin Duncan, on January 4th, in the course 
of his address to juveniles at the London 
Institution on " Summer, the Pageant of 
Nature." He reminded his large youthful 
audience that many plants, although they did 
not, when they heard the barrel-organ or the 
gramophone, have any desire to get up and 
dance on the lawn, had still the power of 
shifting their quarters. This was so in the 
case of the orchid of the meadows, which had 
the power of moving one step further every 
year ; and, although it took a long time to 
cross the meadow, if the orchid went on long 
enough it would move one step forward 
towards accomplishing that long walk every 
year. 
