Lees: British and Alien Plant-Lists. 317 



we don't express all when we speak of the maturing of seed (as 

 respects a ' species ') ; as in Armor acia, as in Crocus sativus 

 and ' mcdifionis,' the organic vitahty has not ' shot its bolt ' 

 with a green seed pod, it has other dodges that, tiding over a 

 decade more or less, can make a ' species ' of it yet, even to our 

 eyes. All this, however, is plainlier hinted at in G. C. Druce's 

 more compendious List, which brings us to the far-and-away 

 most satisfying dish of the three. 



In several directions the Oxford List of British Plants, con- 

 taini^ig the Spermophytes, Pteridophytes and Charads. . . Natives 

 or growing in a wild state in Britain, Ireland and the Channel 

 Isles (Clarendon Press, 104 pages, 2s. 6d.), is a new departure 

 from a new terminus, and along lines that allow of many more 

 stational stops and crossings being indicated than in the 

 Catalogue last dealt with. 



Throughout its 2958 numbered names, raised to 2991 with 

 the additions of a final page, a Census of county and vice- 

 comital areas in which the ' species ' occur is given ; the Hiber- 

 nian census is added, and whether it has been found in one or 

 more of the Sarnian islands is appended, when restricted to any 

 of these. The oldest names are adhered to, reasons being given 

 for certain innumerous exceptions. Synonyms take up a little 

 space, but being so illuminatively useful are freely inserted, 

 those of the indispensable Index Kewensis notably so. As the 

 author restrainedly says ' there must be diversity of opinion, 

 and exception may quite fairly be taken to some of the names 

 employed,' but a most meritorious attempt to be above all 

 things consistent has been made. In this dry-as-dust arena 

 amid this nomenal pother it will be enough to say here that 

 Spergularia remains, Tissa, Adans., the already unweildy 

 Arenaria for the Buda split-off, and Lepigonum, being rejected ; 

 whilst both Parantucella and the earlier ' badly defined ' 

 Trixago, teste F. N. Williams, are lost in Bartsia for the some- 

 what anomalous B. viscosa (No. 1947 in List) ; the occasional 

 European ballast alien Bartsia Trixago, the yellow Bladder- 

 Wattle with villous calyx and deeply-toothed leaves, finding its 

 'due place (No. 1946), albeit (with many another strange-face) 

 missed out of Dunn's Alien Flora of Britain. Where this 

 Oxford List leaves something to be followed up, it gives a fillip 

 to our zest — no ' Will o' the Wisp ' — by some clue of Reference 

 to the way one must go to reach the goal of full knowledge. 

 I have found it even fascinating, for a goodly number of indi- 



.1908 August I. 



