BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 289 
the first edition of one published under the sanction of the 
Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 
In all these earlier Exchange Catalogues, the arrangement 
of the genera was alphabetical, the names corresponding with 
those employed in the British Flora. The same nomencla- 
ture still appeared in **A Catalogue of British Plants, in- 
cluded in Vol. I. of Hooker's British Flora, 3rd edition," 
Which was published by Mr. Francis, who substituted the 
Linnean method in place of an alphabetical arrangement. 
The natural system, however, was adopted in an ably compiled 
Catalogue, published anonymously soon after, and which 
contained the synonymes of several authors. 
In 1841, the Botanical Society of Edinburgh issued a 
second edition of their Catalogue, much changed, and on 
which no little trouble had been bestowed by the compilers ; 
three of whose names appeared on the title-page of the one- 
sheet pamphlet. "The alphabetical arrangement of the genera 
was still retained; but being accompanied also by many 
alterations in the generic (equally as in the specific) names of 
the plants, the alphabetical arrangement was thus rendered 
exceedingly inconvenient in use. Like all the preceding Ca- 
talogues, also, the second edition was not truly a list of British 
plants; but an enumeration of nearly all those species which 
had been so reported ; without any distinction between indige- 
nous and introduced species, between the rare and common, or 
between those still found by botanists of the present age and 
other species which are now vainly sought in the localities 
assigned for them. Thus, it unavoidably led to much disap- 
pointment when used as an exchange catalogue, more parti- 
cularly with foreign botanists, who naturally supposed that 
their correspondents in Britain took little trouble to procure 
specimens of the species marked by them, the Me demon 
being unknown, namely, that the plants were either very 
local or not found at all in Britain. Nevertheless, as 
being the fullest « Catalogue of British Plants” extant at the 
time of the publication of the 5th edition of the “ British 
Flora,” the author of that work deemed it entitled to quo- 
fation among the synonymes, “as one in which especial pains 
