438 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A very concise but comprehensive series of planting lists is added by 

 Mr. Leonard Barron. These lists considerably enhance the value of the 

 book from a practical point of view, since they show a particular dif- 

 ferentiation between mere collections of good and Indifferent plants, 

 trees, vines, and bulbs, and a careful selection of the best of these 

 subjects for any special purpose. 



" Eoses of the Bavarian Highlands Die Eosen des Siidlichen und 

 Mittleren Frankenjura "). Imp. 8vo., 248 pp. By Dr. Joseph 

 Schwertschlager. (Munich, 1910.) JO m. 



This book deals with "The Eoses of the Southern and Middle 

 Frankenjura, their systematic and phylogenetic arrangement, with a 

 review of the whole race of Eoses and the general problem of their 

 descent." Known to the botanist as "Eosa," to the gardener as 

 rose species," and to the mere man as " wild roses," this department 

 of the kingdom of flowers has probably received more attention from 

 monograph writers than any other, and the book entitled as above is 

 the latest contribution to the subject » 



The Frankenjura form a range of hills lying in crescent shape round 

 Nuremberg, running from the north by the east, and reaching to the 

 southward of the town down to the valley of the Danube. The district 

 selected by the author for his investigations is roughly the portion of 

 these hills between Nuremberg and the Danube where it extends from 

 Donauworth on the west to Eegensberg on the east, with Eichstadt as 

 its centre, and forms an area of about seventy miles from east to west 

 and half that distance from north to south. Some of the hills rise to 

 over 2000 feet, and the district appears to be particularly rich in 

 varieties of wild roses, and e&pecially of hillside roses. The book before 

 us is, however, a good deal more than a mere local flora, and forms a 

 most interesting contribution to the study of the classification of the 

 Eose. 



Since the days of Linnaeus we find two great periods of advance in 

 the study of Rosa. First, the early years of the nineteenth century 

 corresponding approximately with the issue, under the care of Joseph 

 Sabine, of the first series of " Transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society," and marked by the names of De Candolle, Desvaux, and Eau, 

 in France, and Lindley, Woods, Sabine, and Lyell in England; and, 

 secondly, with the decade of the 'seventies, a period quite remarkable for 

 its wealth of Eose literature. To mention only a few of these writers : 

 about this period appeared Dr. Christ's "Eoses of Switzerland"; 

 Begel's " Tentamen," a review of the whole race of Eoses; Baker's 

 " Monograph of British Eoses "; Crepin's " Materials to serve for a 

 History of the Eose "; and Gandoger's " Tabulae Ehodologiae. " 



Are we at the beginning of a fresh advance? It almost seems as 

 if we might hope this to be the case. To begin the new era, and first 

 in point of importance, Baker gave us in 1905 a " Eevised Classifica- 

 tion of Eoses " in the " Journal of the Tjinnean Society," probably the 

 clearest and simplest system yet devised, being in effect an extension 



