406 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



D. Wooster's " Alpine Plants."* A first edition in 1871 in one 

 volume, afterwards called the first series, and a second edition, 1874, 

 in two volumes 4to. The preface tells us the work was written to 

 encourage the efforts made by other authors to restore to favour the 

 beautiful little plants, mostly natives of high latitudes, treated with 

 neglect owing to the popular taste for bedding-out. 



It is illustrated with 108 plates, many containing two figures. 

 They are for the most part rather gaudy, as chromolithographs of 

 that date were wont to be ; but some, such as Aquilegia alpina, 

 46, vol. i., and Colchicum autumnale fl. pi., 18, are pleasing enough. 

 Such plants as Funkia undulata, Erigeron speciosus, and Anemone 

 stellata being included, the work is not strictly confined to true Alpines. 



Verlot's " Les Plantes Alpines "* (Paris, 1873) is a French edition 

 of the plates of the first volume re-arranged as to order, and with 

 fresh and much shorter text. Its value lies in some very interesting 

 accounts of expeditions in search of plants to Monte Viso, Mont Cenis, 

 Mont Blanc, Gavarnie, Le Lautaret and other centres, with full lists 

 and localities of the plants met with. 



" Rock Gardening for Amateurs,"* by H. H. Thomas and S. Arnott 

 (1914, 6s.), goes over the whole ground on the lightest of wood-pulp 

 paper. Most of the colour photographs are charming in colour and 

 beautifully reproduced. The Ramondia is a trifle blue and too much 

 like the colour of Meconopsis Wallichii, but Lithospermum prostraium 

 and Veronica rupestris are as good as can be wished, and the book is 

 rich in good half-tone plates. The descriptive lists of plants at the 

 end are arranged according to families, and usefully divided in many 

 cases into the easily grown and more difficult species, and a great 

 number of plants are included. 



M. Correvon published a small book in 1914, " Plantes des Montagnes 

 et des Rochers : leur acclimatation et leur culture dans les Jardins."* 

 It contains very full lists of plants, mostly described by means of 

 symbols and abbreviations, so that it is a very handy and concise 

 book of reference. There is a chapter on noted rock-gardens in 

 England and on the Continent, and also the Botanic Alpine Gardens 

 in the Alps themselves, and an especially interesting chapter headed 

 Cultures speciales, in which the growing of Alpine plants in pure 

 Sphagnum is described and advocated for hot sunny climates such 

 as that of Geneva. 



" Les Jardins Alpins," by Ivolas, Paris and Geneva, 1908, 

 I have not seen. 



There are many useful hints in Miss Jekyll's "Wall and Water 

 Gardens "* for the use of stone in supporting walls and dry walls, and 

 for grouping Alpines on them. 



In " My Garden," by Eden Phillpotts, chapters v.-viii. deal 

 with the author's rock-garden in a delightfully humorous vein, and 

 this brings us to the books about individual rock-gardens written by 

 their owners. 



The earliest of these is "My Rock-Garden,"* by Reginald Farrer 



