82 
REVIEW 
some of these will serve a useful purpose. For example, the keys to the 
genera of the Bryophyta known to occur in South Africa cannot fail, at the 
same time, to emphasise the need for further investigation, and to assist those 
who are prepared to undertake it. The rather remarkable omission of Riella, 
a locally common and extremely curious form, from Dr Diels’ synopsis of the 
genera of liverworts, may be noted incidentally. In some other cases, e.g. that 
of the Chlorophyceae (pp. 8-10), one wonders whether the few details which 
it has been possible to crowd into so small a space are sufficient to justify 
their inclusion in a work of this character. 
The account of the lower seed-bearing plants includes some of the most 
interesting and best known of the forms represented in the extremely varied 
vegetation of South Africa — the Proteaceae, Mesembrianthema, the Cycads, 
Welwitschia and a number of curious parasitic dicotyledons. Other families 
of outstanding interest remain for the later volumes but it may safely be 
said that none of them is likely to contain a larger proportion of plants of 
general interest than are to be found here. 
Those who are familiar with the illustrations employed by the author in 
his earlier writings will open this work with pleasant anticipations which 
will most certainly be realised. We have heard it said that the volume is 
expensive. But those who can appreciate such things will admit at once that 
the reproductions of the photographs alone are worth every penny of the cost 
of the whole work. Many of them are from Dr Marloth’s own camera ; some 
from those of other well-known plant-photographers. But they all attain to 
so high a standard of excellence that it is really hardly fair to particularise 
any. Apart from their excellence as photographs they all possess the great 
merit of shewing the plant in its natural surroundings, and so furnish 
oecological studies of the most valuable character. The coloured plates form 
an important part of the work and will appeal strongly to very many who 
have hitherto sought in vain for a ready means of identifying common or 
conspicuous species. Naturally it has been possible to represent but a small 
proportion of the species in this way, but enough has been done, and in such 
a way as to serve this purpose admirably. Considering the enormously wide 
area from which the material for these plates has been drawn, the attainment 
of results of such general excellence is really remarkable and reflects great 
credit on the artists employed. In some cases, it is true, the artist has 
apparently attempted to produce rather than to reproduce. The colour of the 
leaves of Encephalartos Altensteinii (Plate 15) is a little unfamiliar; those of 
the cones of Welwitschia (Plate 21), particularly that of the male cones, are 
unnatural. The drawing is not always accurate — for example Fig. 8 on 
Plate 21 gives to the bract an elongated apex which is really the projecting 
part of the tubular micropyle, as is clearly shewn in Fitch’s figure published 
by Hooker in 1863. But these and other like blemishes may well be minimised 
