British Local Floras. 
389 
has no definite significance. This irregularity of treatment is, of 
course, unavoidable in any local flora. The only adverse criticism 
we have to make regarding this section refers to the so-called 
common names used by the author. We should not have thought 
that anybody found such names as “ Bristle-leaved Spike-rush ” 
easier to remember or in any way more useful than Scirpus 
setaceus. In the matter of nomenclature, the book is admittedly 
old fashioned. Mr. Praeger refuses to follow any one of the three 
recent catalogues of British plants on account of their nomen- 
clatorial discrepancies. “ We in Ireland,” says the author, “ dwell 
remote from the exhilarating sport of name-changing ; ” but we think 
it a pity that a few of the leading rules of the Vienna Congress 
were not adopted. 
The area included under the term “West of Ireland” has 
been chosen so as to join up Donegal in the north with Kerry and 
Cork in the south ; and thus the district of Killarney is excluded. 
The book more than fulfils the purpose for which it was 
written, namely, to serve as a ‘ first aid ’ to the tourist who desires 
information in a condensed form respecting that peculiar flora “ of 
the West of Ireland.” It is beautifully and profusely illustrated with 
excellent photographic views of the more interesting plants, with 
excellent coloured maps, and with small, but particularly useful, 
sketch maps. The price of the book is, considering all these points, 
extraordinarily low ; and we hope and expect that the book will have 
a correspondingly large sale. If a new edition is called for, we 
hope the three indexes will be merged into one and placed at the 
end of the book. Multiple indexes are always vexatious, more 
especially when, as in the present case, they are placed in different 
places in the general body of a book. 
“ The Botany of Worcestershire ” is a high-priced and portentous 
work. There is a short introduction which gives us an incomplete 
account of the physical features of the county. There is no account 
of the soils (as opposed to the geological strata), and no general 
account of the vegetation of the district. In these respects, the flora 
is distinctly inferior to those on more modern lines, such as Crump 
and Crossland’s Flora of Halifax, and Wheldon and Wilson’s Flora 
of West Lancashire. The “botanical districts” are, from the point 
of view of vegetation, quite artificial and follow conventional lines 
in being named after rivers. The book records the occurrence in 
Worcestershire of 1146 species of Angiosperms, 3 Gymnosperms 
(placed between the Monocotyledons and the Dicotyledons), 36 
Pteridophytes, 7 members of the Characeae (placed between the 
Pteridophytes and the Musci), 369 Bryophytes, 171 Lichenes, 1399 
Fungi, and 65 Algae, giving a grand total of 3196 species. Without 
doubt, this represents an extraordinarily large amount of field-work 
on the plants of Worcestershire, and in the performance of this work 
much information of an interesting and valuable nature must have 
been acquired with regard to the biology of the various species. 
This useful information is, however, carefully hidden in the mere 
listing of names and localities. In the section dealing with the 
flowering plants and ferns, “particulars about the plant which the 
writers think may be useful or interesting ” are given. We give one 
of such items which appears under Clematis Vitalba. “ The plant is 
an irritant, but the young shoots are edible; in some places the 
