[Book Reviews]

Abstract

A REPRINT from the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, containing an alphabetical synopsis of the animal, vegetable, and mineral products of Western Afghanistan and Eastern Persia, together with their native names, with their English and Latin equivalents, and their applications. Dr. Aitchison's contributions to the botany and zoology of Afghanistan and the adjoining countries are well known to specialists, and the present work is an amplification of the economic branch of his investigations. Persia has been specially noted from time immemorial for its drugs, dyes, perfumes, and other vegetable productions, but much yet remains to be done in the elucidation of the plants which yield them. Dr. Aitchison was attached to the last military expedition to Afghanistan, and he was also naturalist to the “Delimitation Commission,” and made very extensive collections of botanical and zoological objects, especially of the former. During the latter expedition he specially investigated the origin of the drugs, such as the asafœtida, obtained from umbelliferous plants, and the main results are given in a handsomely illustrated memoir that appeared in the Transactions of the Linnean Society.

Notes on the Products of Western Afghanistan and North-Eastern Persia.

By J. E. T. Aitchison Pp. 228. (Edinburgh: Neill and Co., 1890.)