BOOK REVIEWS; 
531 
4 Loder's White/ one of the choicest of Grirfithianum's numerous 
progeny ? and who would not be happy to raise a counterpart of it ? 
Sir E. Loder's magnificent R. X Loderi, the popular ' Pink Pearl/ as 
to the origin of which there seems some doubt, and in the cultivation 
of which there are such frequent errors, and many another, spur the 
seed-raiser on to hope for still further beauties in store. 
The plates are, of course, a feature of the book. They are of three 
types: collotype plates, which are magnificent, giving as well as 
black and white can give the values and texture of the superb plants 
they represent ; half-tone plates, which too are excellent, representing 
in some cases the plants growing in their native habitats by means 
of the fine photographs taken by Mr. G. Forrest, with which the Fellows 
of our Society will be familiar ; and coloured plates from paintings 
representing plantings of Rhododendrons and also portraits of 
individual flower clusters. A coloured plate of such a grouping in 
the garden as Rhododendrons can give must lose something in its 
reproduction, and though these are excellent, yet that glory of high 
June which thoughts of Azaleas and Rhododendrons at the zenith of 
their flowering arouse is somehow missed, perhaps because the gloss or 
the grey of the rhododendron foliage is not easy to portray, or because 
the atmosphere of a June day cannot be expressed in a coloured plate. 
Of them all, perhaps, Thorburn's "Knaphill Nursery in June " pleases 
us best. Some of the individual trusses shown are good, but all would, 
we think, have been better for the elimination of the background which 
they have been given — too much like the heavy leaden hues of the out- 
of-focus parts of a colour-photograph. We need another Redoute*; 
but perhaps a good deal might be learned by a patient study of that 
master's methods and a great forward step achieved in the faithful 
and artistic picturing of flowers even yet. 
The text is the work, so far as the first part is concerned, of Mr. 
J. G. Millais, and his previous works on birds and beasts have made his 
style and powers familiar to every lover of fine books. He gracefully 
acknowledges the help he has had from Sir Edmund Loder, Messrs. 
P. D. and J. C. Williams, and Prof. Bayley Balfour, who has done so 
much of late to clear up difficult questions on the classification of the 
genus as new material from the Himalaya and from China has become 
available, and to Mr. J. Hutchinson of Kew. The last-named gentle- 
man has drawn up a key to the identification of the cultivated species 
of the genus. Such a key should be of great assistance in discovering 
the name of an unknown form (so long as it has been described), and 
it forms a useful introduction to the alphabetical arrangement of 
technical descriptions of species (many of them from material supplied 
by the Edinburgh Botanic Garden), which follows along with various 
notes of historical and cultural value. These descriptions comprise 
more than half the letter-press, and for the first time bring together 
descriptions of the species and hybrids comprising the genus. 
The earlier chapters treat of the Love of Gardening and Gardens, 
the General Distribution of the Species, Chinese Rhodendrons, Hybrid 
