Some capital geography, much enthusiastic and highly skilled botany, a
little sprinkling of ethnology and a vast deal of adventurous thrill and human sparkle are some of the ingredients which have gone towards the making of a very good dish—Mr. .Kingdon Ward's Plant Hunting on the Edge of the World (Gollancz, 21s.). Its title explains its main contents, and the search for new things to beautify our rock-gardens at home took place in the dank forest- covered mountain country which lies between north-eastern Assam and northern Burma, sparsely inhabited by primitive tribes and much of it never before explored. This then is a travel-book of the very best kind, but, of course, with a strong botanical flavour. Practical gardeners will certainly profit by the exact description of the habitat of many of the rare plants which the author brought or sent home, and others besides field-botanists will sympathize with the delight experienced by Mr. Kingdon Ward on first beholding the colour and brilliance of the Tea Rose Primula. To reach it and other like trophies meant hard travel, hard lying and hard living, and, as much of the work had to go on among or near dangerous highland tribes, there was always present more than a spice of potential danger. ;
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