SOME BOOKS ON ROCK-GARDENING AND ALPINE PLANTS. 397 



find, and this was the forerunner of several works consisting of series 

 of coloured plates, which it will be convenient to deal with next. 



M. Graf, the Director of the Botanic Garden at Graz, began a 

 Flora, but, dying before it was completed, M. Petrasch, his successor, 

 carried it on with the help of Prof. Kerner of Vienna, and so "Die 

 Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt " * was published at Prague 

 1878-9, containing the beautiful plates painted from living specimens 

 by Joseph Seboth. The book is generally known as Seboth's, owing 

 to the beauty of these plates. An English edition in four vols., edited 

 by Alfred W. Bennett, was published in 1879-80, and is a delightful 

 possession for anyone fond of Alpine plants. It is pleasant to turn 

 over its pages and, by the help of the 400 faithful portraits it contains, 

 remind oneself of favourite flowers when they are out of season, or, as 

 in the case of many, which can only be seen in their full beauty in their 

 mountain homes. 



I always linger over t. 95 of vol. iv. and wonder whether any 

 Sempervivum was really so exquisite as the plate the artist has made 

 of Sempervivum dolomiticum. Certainly nothing I have as yet grown 

 under that name can compare favourably with it. 



Another and somewhat similar work is " Atlas der Alpenflora," 

 published by the German and Austrian Alpine Society, 1882-4, a * 

 Vienna, in five small 8vo. volumes, one of text, and four containing 

 between them 500 plates which are almost as charming as those by 

 Seboth. These are by Anton Hartingen, while the text is by Dr. K. W. 

 von Dalla Torre. The plates have a stone-coloured background that 

 gives rather a heavy tone to the green of the leaves. Seboth also 

 used coloured backgrounds in some cases, but with better effect on the 

 whole. One plate of Hartingen's I never tire of. It is No. 405, 

 Primula Clusiana, perhaps a trifle glorified, but so lovely that the sight 

 of it has often made me long to rush off to its home beyond Vienna 

 while it is in flower to see if I can find this glorious form. A French 

 edition * was published at Geneva and Basle in 1899, with a volume 

 of text by M. Correvon. Most of the plates in this edition differ from 

 those of the earlier in being prepared from photographs taken from 

 the plants themselves. In some cases this makes them very interesting 

 as showing minute structures, such as the downiness of the carpels 

 in Paeonia peregrina in t. 28, and the hairs on leaves and pods of 

 Draba Sauteri in t. 165, but as a rule the colouring is bad and heavy, 

 and not so good as in the older edition. 



These two last are rather expensive works, costing about a pound a 

 volume, but the second edition of the Atlas only £3 55. A cheaper 

 work, at twelve shillings and sixpence, is Bennett's " Flora of the 

 Alps " (1896) in two volumes, with 120 coloured plates. These are not 

 to be compared with those of the other two books, but its value lies 

 in the text. Its scope is larger than that of earlier works, embracing 

 the Alpine flora of Switzerland and the adjacent mountain districts 

 of France, Italy, Austria, and the Pyrenees. A great number of 

 plants are mentioned ; in fact, the author claims that every flowering 



