isrs..] hogg’s feuit manual. 125 
plants of tlie different sexes when they reach the flowering stage, the male plants 
being, from this point of view, much to be preferred. 
In the case of the male plant ( C . excelsci mascula ), the inflorescence consists 
of a large and ample panicle of a deep yellow colour, at first erect, but afterwards 
drooping, with robust arcuate ramifications ; the flowers small, numerous, 
very closely set, of a fine deep orange-yellow, with yellow anthers. The female 
plant ( C . excelsci faemina) has a much smaller paniculate inflorescence, which is 
permanently erect, with distant spreading slender branches, the flowers small, but 
more distant, and of a greenish yellow, like the rachis. It flowers about April 
and May, and the seeds ripen from February to April of the following year, thus 
taking about a year to attain maturity. The accompanying figures show plainly 
the differences in the inflorescence of the two plants.—M. 
HOGG’S FRUIT MANUAL.* 
® HE third edition of this Manual, forming a hand-book of some 400 pages, 
was published in 1866. The fourth has grown into an octavo volume of 
f 600 pages, accompanied by 56 pages of outline illustrations, representing 
101 select varieties of Apples and Pears. The increased bulk has been 
made up partly by very numerous additions to the varieties of fruits described, 
and partly by the introduction of historical notes indicating the origin of many 
of these varieties, and which add immensely to the interest of the volume. Omit¬ 
ting the smaller and less important fruits, some 300 additional kinds of Apples 
have been described, about 150 additional Cherries, nearly 500 additional Pears, 
over 60 Plums, and about three dozen new Grapes. The additions have, in fact, 
been so numerous and important, that the volume is rather to be regarded as a 
new work than as a new edition. Moreover, since the author’s reputation as a 
pomologist is an ample guarantee of its general accuracy, it must be regarded as 
an indispensable book of reference to all who take interest in our cultivated fruits. 
Though eminently useful, or indeed, as we have just said, indispensable in the 
garden library, w r e must give the author a friendly jog to remind him that the 
Fruit Manual is not yet perfect, and that more is yet expected of him. Some 
means might surely be found for classifying the varieties of all the different 
fruits, in such a way as to furnish a tolerably safe and easy means of identifying 
them—such a classification, in fact, as is given in the case of some of the 
fruits in the volume before us, under Almonds, Cherries, Plums, and Peaches, 
for instance, but which is not attempted in the case of Apples and Pears, 
the two most important of our common fruits. Difficult it may be in some 
cases to devise a system of classification, but then difficulties only exist to 
be overcome, and any mode of grouping which would lead up to the names 
of unknown fruits, would be so practically useful to those who have not had 
* The Fruit Manual; containing the Descriptions, Synonyms, and Classification of the Fruits and Fruit- 
trees of Great Britain ; with a Hundred and One Engravings of the Best Varieties. By Eohert Hogg, LL.D., 
F.L.S., &c. Fourth Edition. London: Journal of Horticulture Office. 1875. 
