NOTICES OF BOOKS RECEIVED. 



157 



and species is concerned. To make the work fully complete, however, 

 at least one other part will be issued, containing a general review of 

 the whole Orchid family. A glance from Part I. (issued in 1887) to 

 Part IX. shows the enormous amount of good work which has been 

 done during the past six years, and the result, if bound together, 

 would form a bulky volume of 1,089 pages. The species— more or 

 less in cultivation — of over ninety genera have been described minutely 

 and well, while the history of introduction and references to figures and 

 synonomy have received careful attention. The "Genera Plantarum" 

 has been taken as the standard of classification, but in some cases 

 (e.g. Co-ax, Thunia, Paphinia, &c.) has not been strictly adhered to. 

 Before the work is quite closed a general index to the whole of it 

 should be added, as at present it is somewhat troublesome to be 

 obliged to refer to the index of each part in succession when in search 

 of a certain genus or species. Such a general index would not only be 

 a valuable addition to an already most admirable work, but would 

 save much time to the student. 



Art Out of Doors. By Mrs. Schuyler van Rexsselaer. London : 

 T. Fisher Unwin. 1893. 



A book full from beginning to end of most excellent common sense, 

 and quite true to its subordinate title of " Hints on Good Taste in 

 Gardening," but written in almost too literary a style, and in lan- 

 guage somewhat above the immediate comprehension of the ordinary 

 working gardener. Indeed it hardly contemplates the ordinary 

 gardener, but is written more for the landscape gardener and the 

 owners of residential estates, though, at the same time, by far the 

 greater part of the principles it lays down are in themselves as 

 applicable to the garden proper as to the "grounds." The authoress 

 herself says " two trees and six shrubs, a scrap of lawn, and a dozen 

 flowering plants may form either a beautiful little picture or a huddled 

 disarray of forms and colours " ; and she warns us against "thinking 

 that art is needed only for broad landscape effects. It is needed 

 wherever we do more than grow plants for the money we may gain by 

 them." In the selection of trees and shrubs the desirability of em- 

 ploying a large proportion of native or thoroughly naturalised plants 

 is well insisted on ; "local plants are essential as a foundation, and 

 then, to give variety and the true gardenlike air, exotics should be 

 mingled with them ; but these exotics should never be chosen for their 

 variety or novelty alone," but simply and solely for their harmonious 

 effect. " If a tall shrub is planted it should be because a tall one is 

 needed, not because a particularly handsome tall one has been seen in 

 a nursery or in some neighbour's grounds." The place of variegated 

 foliage is also very well dealt with : "One monotonous tint of green 

 is to be avoided, but still more an excessive use of bright-hued plants. 

 .... Anything that is eccentric in form or colour (Copper Beech for 



