Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/351

 THE FLORA OF THE ALPS. 325 most interesting question, which cannot, however, be discussed here." It is impossible to do justice to this most important work in a brief notice. The vahie of researches such as this can hardly be over-estimated ; it is by means of this class of work that we may confidently hope to derive the greatest possible assistance in phylo- genetic inquiries. Mr. Brebner's drawings deserve the highest praise ; they are models of what illustrations should be, at once scientifically accurate and artistically executed. A. C. Seward. The Flora of the Alps : being a description of all the Species of Flower- imj Plants indigenous to Switzerland; and of the Alpine Species of the adjacent Mountain Districts of France^ Italy, and Austria, including the Pyrenees. By Alfred W. Bennett, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. Loudon: Nimmo. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. xxii, 165, 223. 120 coloured plates. Price 30s. net. If excellent paper, clear type, and attractive binding were all that is necessary to make a good book, Messrs. Nimmo would have produced an admirable Flora of the Alps. Unfortunately these are but externals — the mine, anise, and cummin, so to speak ; and the attention bestowed upon them cannot atone for the neglect of the weightier matters which characterizes this expensive work. The " 120 plates," which should form a useful and important feature in a book of this kind, are for the most part, though tliis is nowhere stated, reproductions of the very unsatisfactory figures in Mr. D. Wooster's Alpine Plants, published in 1874 ; and we cannot help suspecting that the acquiring of these by the publishers formed the raison d'etre of the present work. Some of them are bad beyond belief — for example, Soldanella alpina, Gentiana lutea, Paradisia, Astrantia, and Viola biflora — the last absolutely comic in its badness ; some can only have been introduced because the blocks were ready to hand, e.g., a plate lettered Helianthemum roseum (a hideous presentment of a "rose-coloured" form of the common Rock-rose) and an extraordinary, if not impossible, monstrosity of the Fritillary, which can hardly be considered an alpine flower. Both in colouring and drawing, these figures may take rank among the worst examples of colour-printing; they were bad enough when first produced, but their reissue at the present time is inexcusable, in the face of the great advance which has been made in this style of reproduction. It might have been hoped that the letterpress would to some extent compensate for the badness of the illustrations : this again is far from satisfactory. The botanical tourist will save time, space, and money, and gain immeasurably in efficiency, by the purchase of Mr. Paitson's translation of Gremli's admirable Kxcursionsfiora far die Schweiz, noticed in this Journal for 1889, p. 315 ; the ordinary traveller will effect all these economies and lose nothing in helpfulness if he (or she) obtains M. Correvon's Flore Coloriee de Poche (see Journ. Bot. 1895, 95). The tourist does