BOOKS RECEIVED. 



205 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



"Book of the Daffodil." By Rev. S. E. Bourne, B.A., F.R.H.S. 

 (John Lane, London.) 2s. Qd. 



We have still a vivid recollection of how, when we were at school 

 some half-century ago, if we took up a carelessly done Latin exercise, 

 the master would simply toss it on one side and pay no attention to it, 

 whereas on those rare occasions when a little extra diligence had produced 

 ,a somewhat superior article he would score it through here and there with 

 his red-ink pen and alter it considerably ; in fact, the better done it was 

 the more mottled with red ink would it be when it left the master's desk. 

 He did not think a bad exercise worthy of his serious attention, but the 

 better done it was, and the more it showed evidence of diligence and care, 

 the greater the pains he took to point out a still more excellent way. It 

 is exactly in that spirit that we criticise "The Book of the Daffodil." 

 It is excellently well done, and if twenty were full marks we should give 

 it at least nineteen. No Daffodil-grower should be without it ; it will in 

 every chapter amply repay his study. Having said so much — and it 

 deserves no less — we remark that, being written " by a cultivator for culti- 

 vators, and not by a botanist or for botanists," the divisions and sub- 

 divisions of Chapter III. are unnecessarily laboured, and the scheme of 

 three columns (see note on p. 12) is exceedingly difficult to follow in the 

 printed type. The footnote on p. 26 should have been on p. 25. 



We are heartily glad that Mr. Bourne has rescued Johnstoni from 

 among the Pseudos and recognised its undoubted Triandrus parentage. 

 We could have wished he had also seen his way to give Cyclamineus 

 specific rank, or have recognised it as another "typical hybrid," and not 

 continued to class it as a form of Pseudo. We are strongly inclined to 

 regard it as a true species, not only from the form of both flower and 

 bulb, but also from the wonderful prepotency with which it impresses 

 itself on all its hybrids. If, however, botanists cannot yet admit it as a 

 species, why should it not be looked on as a natural hybrid by Triandrus, 

 out of a small dark Ajax like t Santa Maria,' for example ? It is far 

 more like what such a plant would be than like a Pseudo. 



A note of warning — by no means unnecessary, as we know by constant 

 experience — might have been given, on p. 21 and again on p. 23, not to 

 confuse Incomparabilis Leedsi with Leedsii. 



Might not a single line have been devoted to the wonderful scent of 

 Jonquilla and its near relations ? 



In Chapter VI. five excellent principles are laid down which apply 

 equally to all gardening, and which we cannot too highly commend, 

 though with some of us (those, for instance, who live upon dry and 

 hungry soil) the surroundings can, under no circumstances, be considered 

 " congenial to the nature " of the great mass of plants, and in such places 

 gardening resolves itself into a ceaseless fight against the natural 

 surroundings. 



