200 
Notices of Books . 
Ampelocissus has sixty-two species entirely tropical, mostly African 
and Asian ; only two are American, and one is West Indian. The 
eleven species of Pterisanthes are natives of the East Indies. Clemato- 
cissus is founded on von Muller’s West Australian Vitis angustissima. 
Tetrastigma, with thirty-eight species, is entirely tropical Asian, 
extending westwards from India, and reaching in one species 
Australia. Landukia includes only Hasskarl’s Cissus Landuk of 
Java and Tunkin. Parthenocissus has seven species; amongst them 
the well-known Ampelopsis hederacea and A. tricuspidata , which 
inhabit the mountainous and temperate regions of the Northern 
Hemisphere. To Ampelopsis is assigned fourteen species, false 
Virginian Creepers, which spread through Asia Minor, China, and 
Japan, and then turn up again in the Eastern State of North America. 
Rhoicissus includes the false Virginian Creepers of Africa, which, nine 
species in number, inhabit chiefly South Africa, but are represented 
throughout tropical and sub-tropical Africa by R. erylhrodes , and in 
Somali Land have another representative. Of Cissus itself, the 
largest genus of the family having 214 species, the section Cyphostemma 
has its maximum in tropical and sub-tropical Africa, with a few in 
India and Arabia ; Cayratia is spread in the warmer parts of Africa, 
Asia, and Australia ; whilst the Eucissi are mundane in the tropics and 
warmer regions, but all New World species are distinct from those 
of the Old World. 
Whilst it may be doubted whether the groups which M. Planchon has 
established as genera in this monograph will be accepted as such by 
botanists generally, — certainly those who adopt the standard laid down 
by Bentham and Hooker will be unable to do so, — it is impossible to 
estimate their value, either as a natural grouping or as a practically 
convenient method for identification of forms, without putting them to 
a practical test. The forms in the family are admittedly so variable 
and difficult that any scheme which provides a ready key to the 
species will be a boon to botanists, and it may be hoped that 
M. Planchon’s work may supply this. Apart however from its 
practical usefulness in this way, the monograph, which is a worthy 
member of the series to which it belongs, must be regarded as a 
valuable contribution to our knowledge of plant-forms, for it gives 
the result of M. Planchon’s prolonged study of living plants of the 
group and of his examination of dried specimens in the chief herbaria 
of Europe, although in regard to this latter point, it may perhaps be 
