194 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Antipodes Island, should be destroyed for the sake of the trivial and 

 problematical gain that could be acquired by sheep-farming thereon. 



On the question of the origin of the flora of these isles, two explana- 

 tions are discussed : first that seeds were brought by winds, birds, currents 

 or icebergs over wide stretches of ocean ; secondly, the possible former 

 existence of an antarctic continent, and this view is accepted as the more 

 tenable. The difficulty in inducing seeds of New Zealand plants to 

 germinate unless the conditions be very favourable, and the presence 

 on Chatham Island of earthworms, and again on the Bounty Islands 

 of spiders, both closely related to South American forms, and neither 

 capable of tolerating sea travel, are powerful arguments in favour of this 

 view. 



Then follow a classified list of the indigenous spermaphytes and 

 pteridophytes of the Southern Islands, a bibliography and fourteen plates, 

 maps, and excellent photograms of many of the plants and plant forma- 

 tions described. 



As so readable and interesting a paper is the outcome of a visit during 

 midwinter, it is to be hoped that Dr. Cockayne will soon be able to recount 

 to us the results of a summer visit. 



" The Book of the Carnation." By R. P. Brotherston. Sm. 8vo., 

 95 pp. (John Lane, London and New York,) 2s. 6d. net. 



A considerable portion of this interesting book is given to the descrip- 

 tion of some forty- two species of Dianthus, and a chapter on the history 

 of the Carnation. Its early history, the author says, is involved in 

 obscurity. The same may be said of most of the old-fashioned garden 

 flowers ; but in truth the Carnation has had its history investigated to a 

 greater extent than any other garden flower. An American writer stated 

 that Theaphrastus wrote about the Carnation 300 years B.C., and gave the 

 genus the name of Dianthus. The author of this little book says that the 

 very earliest record of the Carnation dees not go further back than the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century, and that Chaucer does not mention 

 the Carnation. "All good authorities," he says " concur in identifying 

 Chaucer's plant with the Clove tree of commerce." Chaucer's lines are : 



Ther springen herbes greet and smale, 

 The licorys and the cetewale, 



And many a clow gilofre, 

 And notemuge to put in ale, 

 Whethir it be moist or stale. 



Edward the Fourth was born at Rouen in 1442, and an undoubted 

 )) vtrait of him was Bold at Christie's from the Bernal Collection in 1855 ; 

 it is the portrait of a young man, and he holds a Carnation daintily in his 

 hand. Chaucer died in 1400, so that it is quite possible and even pro- 

 bable that the Carnation was a garden flower in his time. But in truth 

 very few Carnation cultivators trouble themselves about the ancient 

 history of the flower. What they do want to know is how to obtain the 

 best varieties, and what is the best way to grow them, under glass and in 

 the open garden. The author has had most of his experience as a culti- 

 vator in Scotland, which is probably the reason why growers in England 



