REVIEW 
THE GRASSES AND GRASSLANDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. By J. W. 
Bews, M.A., D.Sc. Pietermaritzburg, P. Davis and Sons, Ld. (1918). 
Until the publication in 1898-1900 of the thorough and scholarly account 
of the South African Grasses by 0. Stapf in the seventh volume of the Flora 
Capensis, workers on South African species of grasses had to rely in the 
main on Nees’ treatise on S.A. Gramineae first published in 1841. Only one 
work of outstanding importance, dealing however only with one group, 
the Andropogoneae, had in the interval been issued by Hackel in the Mono- 
graphiae Phanerogamarum, vol. vi (1889), edited by A. and C. De Candolle. 
After the issue of Stapf’s work the late Dr J. M. Wood illustrated about 
200 species in Natal Plants. On the whole the S.A. Grasses are now better 
known from a taxonomic point of view than most other families. The way 
was thus opened for their study from other points of view. Stapf led off 
by his interesting phytogeographical treatise Die Gliederung der Graeserflora 
von Suedafrika (Berlin, 1904). During more recent years Dr Bews has given 
us a series of most valuable studies of the plant-succession in S. Africa, 
special attention having been given to the grasslands and we are, therefore, 
very grateful to him that he has summarised some of these researches in the 
present book and added new observations and conclusions. The ecological 
study of such a large group of plants scattered over such a wide area under 
very diverse conditions naturally cannot be expected to yield anything like 
finality in a few years’ work, but already it seems that much of what Dr Bews 
has written on the subject will at all events serve as a firm foundation for 
future investigation. Any criticism that the writer has to offer must, therefore, 
be looked upon as entirely overshadowed by the solid worth of the book 
which has been to him already a frequent source of instruction and even 
inspiration. 
The book opens with an introduction dealing with a general description 
of grasses, with plant-succession and a glossary of botanical terms. The ter- 
minology used in the description of the spikelet is the same as that employed 
by British authors generally and unfortunately also in the Flora Capensis 
which altogether blurs the morphological interpretation and correlation of 
its parts. The terminology used by most continental botanists seems 
to be much simpler and more logical. It might have been advisable foi 
Dr Bews to mention that he describes a typical spikelet and that deviation 
