Abstract
THIS is an extraordinary book, difficult alike to characterise and to review. It is a monument of enormous labour and erudition, but it is not easy to discover the plan upon which it is compiled, and it certainly does not fulfil the promise of its title. A “chronological history of plants ” would be an interesting and valuable work, if understood to mean a history of the ages and countries in which particular plants have been introduced from abroad, or those of home growth first adapted to the use of man. This, indeed, is the work which Dr. Pickering seems to have contemplated; it is not, however, the work which he has accomplished.
Chronological History of Plants: Man's Record of his own Existence illustrated through their Names, Uses, and Companionship.
By Charles Pickering (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.; London: Trübner and Co., 1879.)
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SAYCE, A. Chronological History of Plants . Nature 21, 104 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/021104a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021104a0
