THE WOODLANDS ORCHIDS.
The Woodlands Orchids. By Frederick Boyle. Coloured Plates by J. L. Macfarlane, F.R.H.S. (Macmillan and Co. 21*.) Parts of this book have already appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, Black and White, and other journals. It consists of a description of the famous collection of orchids at Woodlands, Streatham, belonging to Mr. Measures. There are lista of hundreds of species and thousands of varieties of Cattleyas, Cypripediums, and others, with detailed descriptions of form and colour that may well make the mouth of the orchid-grower water. The genera reader, to whom these lists may mean nothing, will yet find much to interest him in this volume, for Mr. Boyle has collected a number of stories of the adventures of orchid-seekers. Orchids are to be found in nearly all parts of the world, especially in the tropics. Pestilential climates, the presence of wild beasts and cannibals, have not deterred the orchid-hunter, of whose failures and successes Mr. Boyle has many exciting tales to tell. The book is illustrated by coloured plates of the rarer orchids, printed, we are told, in London. The colouring is accurate, but the method very inartistic. We wonder whether they would nut have been better done in Germany.
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