Abstract
JUDGING by the useful purpose it has served in the past, Jofifeg's “flowers of the Field” may almost be regarded as a “classic,” and now it shares with the classics the fate of being produced in two versions. The opinion is often expressed that the editions bearing a date antecedent to 1899 were excellently adapted to the use of amateur collectors of flowers, but the publishers, considering it advisable to bring the book up to date, remodelled it at the same time. In the version now before us, Mr. Elliott claims that the old form is maintained except for revision, the augmentation of descriptions and the addition of new coloured plates. It is evident that the text has been subjected to considerable revision, especially in the matter of rearranging the species of some of the larger genera, but there are other place where emendations were required, such as assigning Paris to the Trilliaceae and Acorus to the Orontiaceæ, retaining the genera Apargia and Fedia, and the binomial Lactuca alpina. Where the present edition differs from, and falls short of the original work is in the size and number of the cuts, and the elimination of guiding headlines tinder the large genera. The coloured plates are good reproductions, but in many instances the drawings are scrappy and attenuated. An apparently unimportant and yet important change is the increase in size and bulk of the volume. While recognising that Mr. Elliott has made changes for the better in the text, mistakes such as “aureole,” “Hiberna,” “paralias,” are not infrequent. It is probable that the botanist who possesses an old edition of the book will be satisfied, witli his antique.
Flowers of the Field.
Rev. C. A. Johns. Revised and edited by C. Elliott. Pp. xx + 316. (London: G. Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1907.) Price 7s. 6d. net.
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Flowers of the Field . Nature 76, 315 (1907). https://doi.org/10.1038/076315b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/076315b0