234 
Hifc tropical Agriculturist. [Oct. i, 1894. 
We give the above with all its technicalities to 
show that this diecovery bo valuable to economic 
agriculture (made first by Frank, and altorwaicb by 
Sohloesing and Laurent) is still engaging the at- 
tention of Jeadirg chemists; and that, therefore, 
the cultivators of the e oil everywhere, may jet 
look forward hopefully to the time wheD, by 
means of the leguminosae and mixed alga) ea'u- 
rated with the bacteria in Beared of the carbon 
needful for their existence, they will be able to 
enrich their soils with tint principal elemtn', of 
nutrition now bo sparingly supplied from th.9 atmos- 
p'lere, or so expensive and doubtful when sought 
for in artificial manures— nitrogen. 
PLANTING NEWS; 
Talawakele, Aug. 22. 
It is still wet here, though just of late two transient 
sunshines have enabled us to dry our clothes and 
air our rooms. 
This week, owiug possibly to th? remembrance 
of a warm day a month ago, the tea llush gave a 
Biidden jump, but has resolved itself again into U at 
semi-quiescent stale which \ields 10 lb. every 10 da- a. 
The rain ia good for the coffee crop, but, ai usual 
in autumn, leaf disease has denuded the uecs of half 
their foliage, and mauy a bean-laden sucker stands 
bare and will not ripen half its crop. 
The cart-road, especially between Middleton and 
Logie, is in a downright disgrac ful condition. One 
cannot walk along it without getting one's feet all 
bemired. I have never known it so bad in my 17 
years' experience. The trafjic is now so enormous, 
that the Mac Bride system of repairing is useless. 
The road should either be widened from Lindula to 
Talawakele, or else be remetalled every 3 months. 
Railway management too seems all to be going to 
the bad. First we get new 2 ad-class carriages in 
which no one can sit, owing to their uncomfortable- 
ness and draught and sun danger, and now there seem 
to be no waggons or engines to bring up our goods. 
I am told of some goods taking 10 days to coma 
from Colombo to Talawakele, and my own were booked 
6 days ago and have not turned up yet. Two days 
ought to be the correct time. Next time I shall 
get them up from Colombo by cart, as one can't 
waste time the way the railway does. Seeing we 
pay for the railway, we have a right to demand 
that its service be prompt. 
THE FLORA OF CEYLON. 
REVIEW. 
A Handbook to the Fl ra of Ceylon: containing 
Descriptions of all the Species of the Floweriu.it Plants 
indigmous to the Island, a r d Notes on their His ory, 
Distribution and Uses. By Henry Trimen, m. b. 
Loud.) F.B'S-, Director of the Roxal Botanic Gardeos, 
Ceylon. With an Atl»s of Plates iilustra'ing some of 
the more interesting Spec'is Part i. Kananculacese — 
Anacardiacia;. 8vo. pp. xvi. 327, witli pines i.-xxv. 
(4to.) Part ii. t onmracese — Rubiaccre pp. 392, with 
plates xx.vi.-l. (Published under the autho:ity of 
the Government of Ceylon. London : Dulau r-.ud Oo , 
1893-91.) 
When Dr. Trimen left England at the beginning cf 
1880 to undertake the directorate of the Ceylon Gar- 
dens, he had already formed the deterniinaion to 
eluborato the flora of Ceylon, and to publish a des- 
cripthe handbook of its botanv. Those who knew 
him knew that this work would only be undertaken 
alter due preparation aid without undue baste, but 
that it would be pushed forward steadily and with 
all reasonable epee i tj a sat^factory consummation : 
and the two instalments now before us amply justify 
such a conclusion. 
Dr. Trimen was fori urate in having hid so careful 
a predecessor as Or. H. K. Thwaites, whose " Enume- 
ratio Plantirum Zsylanire," published ia 1868-64, he 
rightly describes as " an extremely accurate and 
mo^t valuable work," rend«red more useful by tbe 
extensive scries of illustrative specimens distributed 
by Tbtr«i ts to the pnncipil herbaria of the world. 
The fust woik of the new Director was to I ring tbia 
np to date which he did in a "Systematic fatal gue," 
published in 1655, and srraoged in aecordai.ee ni h 
tbe " G 'eer* Plantaruro." In the courae o' • v. ait to 
' England iu 1686, Dr. Trirueti fooni time to examine 
I tie invaluable C-\lon Heri arium of Hermann, pre- 
| (served in the B'i ush Muteurn upon which Linnaeus 
I bns.'d h s tit a Zeylauije; and he published » ooinplKe 
| enumeration ar.d ideutificaiiou of tbe plants therein 
| rcn'ained with uo'oe, i'i vol. ixiv. of the Journal of 
the Liunean Socitt;/. Various new species have from 
time to urn • been published by Dr. Trimeo in the 
i Journal of Botany; and these witb the results of the 
• rest of bis work are embodied in tbe ''Handbook/' 
I Iu bis vourger days, Dr. Trimen was koowo as a 
I painstftkine ]<rt!tb botanist, and tbe "Flora of 
Middlesex," issued in 1869 for which he wag u a'rdy 
responsible, iuitiated a new departure in works of the 
kind. It wan marked by thoroughness and accuracy; 
every raze showed cire and research : and these 
qualities are abundantly manifest in thia Ceylon 
'• Handbook." A careful correlation of the wc rl of 
pr. d cesaor* in the same field ia another characteristic 
a hart d by each book; and in eich there waa need 
fcr this, for Middlesex plant- have been recorded 
einre thn d.i>s of VVilliim Turner, while the Cin- 
galese flora has been treated of by various authors 
from llermauu (1717) downwards. 
Tbe ope ing senttnoe of the brief introduction 
eir k»s the k-y-oota of the work, with which the two 
v.lurte* before us are in perfect harmony. ' One 
principal object of this Handbook ie to eriab'e observ- 
er- in Ceylon to asoertain the name of any plant they 
may find growing wild. When this ia arrived at, they 
are iu a poeitim to barn all that may have been writ- 
ten aV-ou'itin botanical and other liter4ture, to ap- 
pr.ciate its relationships to oihrr plants, to trace ita 
ilistribution in other land*, and to intelligently inves- 
j tigate its propertire and naes." The book being in- 
! t ndel as a guide to the flo a of Cey'on, the descrip- 
j ti r 'Dt have bctn made wholly from Ceylon specimen*, 
j and the information given uuder each species ia re- 
j stricted to what afTecs it as a Ceylon plait. Tech- 
i idealities have Icq avoided so far ae tin - could ba 
d Hie consistent with neenracy, and the definitions of 
1 orders and cenera are only snch u are shown by the 
' specita found in Ceylon. 
The snrne re-triction is cirried out in the references 
I to poblishfd books and papers, which are almost 
I entirely limited to thise wherein tbe species is noticed 
ts a Ceylon plant. The Latin name is followed by tbe 
vernacular names when known, in Cingalese and Tamil. 
Thwaitee'e distributed numbers are always quoted, 
8nd figures of the species, preference being given to 
such as are known to have been made from Ceylon 
epecimens, are referred to. After the description, 
made wherever possible from living specimens, come 
the general distribution and comparative frequency in 
Csy'on, and notes as to the times of flowering and 
colour of the flowers — points which are not always to 
be found in works of this kind; but which are very 
useful to the field botanist, especially if be be a begin- 
ner. In addition to these matters, information is 
frequently ad^ed on peculiarities in structure, or on tbe 
properties products, and uses of the plants, with brief 
notes on the history and nomenclature of the species. 
The diagnostic description of each order is followed by 
keys for the rapid determination of the genera and 
species. Dr. Trimen has wisely refrained from the 
startling novelties in nomenclature which are to be 
met with in various transatlantic local floras, where 
tbey are more than usually out of place; and lays 
down dogmatically that " no botanical name in the 
modern taxo nomic sense can be of earlier date than 
1753, when Linrsens first definitely published his 
binominal nomenclature." 
Oar colonial floras are for the most part so largely 
drawn up from dried specimens by botanists unac- 
quainted with the plants in a living state, that their 
usef ulnesB in the field must be considerably diminished. 
