BOOK REVIEWS. 



193 



knowing regarding this, the noblest of our forest trees. Particularly 

 interesting to the general reader are the chapters on the folk-lore and 

 Bibhcal references to the oak, while even those who are 

 interested the tree from a purely financial point of view will find 

 much of value in the chapter which deals with the ' ' economic value of 

 the oak." The number of mistletoe oaks might have been increased, 

 while the account of the ravages of insect and fungoid pests is hardly 

 as complete as could have been desired. We can confidently recom- 

 mend the book, which is pleasantly written and nicely illustrated, and 

 hope that Mr. Mosley will extend his researches in a similar way to 

 other of our forest trees. 



"British Eoses." (1) The British Eoses (excluding Eucaninae). 

 (London, 1910.) 140 pp. 3s. (2) The Subsection Eucaninae of the 

 genus Eosa. By Major A. H. Wolley Dod. 110 pp. (London, 

 1908.) 2s. 6d. 



In the year 1894 Professor Crepin published in the Journal of the 

 Eoyal Botanic Society of Belgium " An Essay on the Necessity of a 

 New Monograph on the Eoses of England." Necessity, though " the 

 argument of tyrants," is a summons we know that Nature must 

 obey," and in due time our author has appeared to provide us with 

 the monograph desired by the Belgian Professor. 



In 1908 and 1910 Major Wolley Dod published a series of papers in 

 " The Journal of Botany " which are now collected and to be obtained 

 separately as the two little books before us, which make together a 

 compact volume of some 250 pages. The task he set himself has 

 been to collate descriptions, and bring our knowledge of the genus 

 Rosa more on a level with that of continental Ehodologists. He has, 

 however, by no means confined himself to this useful, if somewhat 

 humble task, but has made a careful and critical study of the Herbaria at 

 Kew, at South Kensington (which contains the collection of Deseglise), 

 and at the Linnean Society, and appears, with the assistance of Miss 

 Willmott, to be making " as complete a collection as possible of grow- 

 ing specimens of British forms " in that lady's garden at Great Warley. 

 The information thus acquired has enabled him to bring so much 

 knowledge to bear on his task as to give us original work of no incon- 

 siderable value. 



After a brief description of the principal characteristics which have 

 been relied on for differentiation, and a glance at the methods adopted 

 respectively by Crepin, Deseglise, Eouy, and Keller, Major Wolley 

 Dod plunges at once into an account of the British species and varieties, 

 which, save for about ten pages of " Eecapitulation " and the Index, 

 occupies the rest of the volume. The author has made free use of 

 the descriptions both of Baker and of Deseglise, and at the end of each 

 section he usually gives some notes on the foreign species of the group. 



In 1869 Baker had described in his monograph (Jour. Linn. Soc, 

 vol. 11, pp. 197-243) some seventy species and varieties of British 

 roses. Major Wolley Dod has nearly doubled their number, describing 



VOL. XXXVII. O 



