352 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



closely the formal style of gardening, now popular among us, has 

 caught on across the Atlantic ; and perhaps astonishes us when we 

 learn how great a use is made of our familiar garden plants in a 

 country with such a rich flora of its own. It is a little disappointing 

 to find so little local colouring in its pages, so few American plants 

 mentioned, and such scanty hints of any work being done among 

 them in the way of selection and adaptation to garden uses. 



If the writer can be taken as an average sample of American amateur 

 gardeners, we must conclude that they are even more painstaking and 

 fastidious over their colour harmonies in the flower borders than we 

 are. A trial garden for new-comers, and the banishment of yellow, 

 orange, and scarlet flowers from the garden proper to the shrubbery 

 borders, are evidences of this. On the other hand, the writer's delight 

 in the mingling of such colours as the Prussian blue of Scilla sibirica 

 with the deep purple of Crocus vermis purpureus grandifiorus strikes 

 one as rather barbaric, but in the early spring days of much bare, 

 brown soil, this may be exhilarating and not unpleasing to the eye. 

 Her knowledge of Tulips seems far greater and more up-to-date than 

 that of Daffodils, and yet by her way of writing of such varieties as 

 Narcissus Barrii conspicuus, ' Sir Watkin,' and ' Minnie Hume,' she 

 seems to be far ahead of her neighbours in having tried these regular 

 old stagers. 



The whole book is written in a pleasant and easy strain ; every line 

 breathes an air of the writer's personal contact with her plants, and 

 a delight in their colours and the garden harmonies produced by 

 their careful grouping for colour effect. 



The chapter on gardening books is pleasant reading and again 

 flattering to our feelings in the number of English books that are 

 described and praised. A chapter headed " Various Gardens," devoted 

 to descriptions of several fine American gardens, is perhaps the 

 most generally interesting of all to English readers. Such a keen 

 gardener as Mrs. King, writing of pleasures among plants that are 

 so evidently real to her, in such a practical and cheerful way, should 

 produce an influence for good and spread a love of beauty among 

 many readers. 



" Plant-Life." By C. A. Hall, F.R.M.S. 8vo. 380 pp. (Black, 

 London, 1915.) 20s. net. 



This large book contains 380 pages and 74 full-page illustrations, 

 50 being in colour, beautifully, accurately, and botanically drawn. 

 The author tells us in the preface that he " has endeavoured to 

 present his readers with a clear account of plant-life in its whole gamut, 

 from the simplest microscopic forms to the most specialized flowering 

 plants." 



This, we think, he has very well done, but it leaves no room for 

 larger questions than morphology demands. The following are the 



subjects of the twelve chapters : Asexual Plants ; The Development 

 of Sex, and Evolution ; Seaweeds ; Fungi and Lichens ; The Arche- 



