BOTANICAL IN OLA 
88 
RECENT PUB LIC A TIG NS 
[We shall be pleased to receive from authors and publishers, copies of botanical books, papers, ami prosjiect- 
uses, for a notice in this column.] 
Since the publication of the April number of the Index, Robert J. Ilalliday’s 
Practical Camellia Culture (Baltimore, Md., cloth, 141 pages 8mo., $2.00) has come to 
hand, and a careful perusal of its pages satisfies us that it is all we had anticipated 
in the way of a practical hand-book of this much-admired tree. All the suggestions 
and directions are plain and comprehensive, and the directions are rendered still 
plainer by forty-four wood cut illustrations, while five colored lithograph plates 
give us the forms and colors of as many choice forms of flowers. We have attempt- 
ed to grow camellias for a long time, but each year they have ijrown shorter and 
proved most unsatisfactory. Now we feel encouraged to try again. Our Southern 
friends will also learn that they are their most valuable ornamental trees, by growing 
them in a cool and shady situation. We are also informed by Mr. Halliday that this 
work will be followed in a few months by Practical Azalia Culture (R. J. Halliday; 
ready about October 1, 1880), which will be hailed with equal delight by all lovers 
of these beautiful winter-flowering shrubs. We heartijjr congratulate Mr. Halliday 
in his successful and satisfactory new undertaking. 
Specialists in any line of study will be pleased to know that Eugene A. Rau and 
A. B. Harvey have issued their Catalogue of North American Musci, which will be of 
great assistance to students in these low and simple vegetable forms. The subject is 
pronounced by all to have been most thoroughly handled, and includes all the 
authentic known species found from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and from 
Mexico to the Arctic ocean. 
From the Province of Ontario, Canada, we have a new botanical text book, of 
great value to botanists, collectors, as well as students, in the Elements of Structural 
Botany , with special reference to the study of Canadian plants, by Prof. John Ma- 
coun and H. B. Spotton. It will add another link to our knowledge of the still in- 
complete Flora of North America, which we hope some of our numerous, capable 
botanical authors will publish during the present decade. It is especially valuable 
for its local information of the botany of Western Canada (Province of Ontario), 
which so nearly corresponds with New York and Michigan. The work is well 
and accurately illustrated by drawings from the authors, while the text is carefully 
and admirably written. 
While we are writing of local flora we would say that Prof. Volney Rattan has 
just issued a second edition of his Popular Flora of California. The work is revised 
and enlarged, but there is much of great interest still unknown in that wonderful 
country which will be an incentive for Mr. Rattan to labor on to attempt a point of 
completeness seldom attained by students. 
Again from far-off Australia comes another valuable publication, from R. Schom- 
burgk, Dr. Phil., in the form of a Yearly Report of Progress and Condition of the 
Government Plantations and Botanic Garden (Adelaide, South Australia, 1879). In 
looking through the pages we are j^Jeased to note the names of several practical 
American (United States) agriculturists and horticulturists. It is the endeavor of 
the government botanists in all the English colonies to introduce whatever will be 
of most practical value to the inhabitants, and it must be a matter of great satisfac- 
tion to know that those in charge of the different Australian colonies are so emi- 
nently successful. 
The Wild Flowers of America (S. E. Cassino, 299 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.) 
has now been reduced in price from $5.00 per part to $1.50 each, which, considering 
the great value of the work and the heavy cost of publishing and lithographing, is 
extremely low. 
The American Garden has now become the property of B. K. Bliss & Sons, and 
with Dr. Hexamer for its editor will appear quarterly, as before. The April num- 
ber before us is well filled with valuable matter and promises well for its future ex- 
istence. 
