BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 291 
But to return to a more agreeable subject, * The London 
Catalogue.” Apparently, it is now the object of this work 
to supply an equally complete list of the plants reported to 
could, in fairness, any way be made. One would suppose that by “ the old 
nomenclature being restored in all its glory," that the author had gone 
back to the days of Dillenius or Ray; but, so far at least as the Edin- 
burgh Catalogue is concerned, the difference of names, “ fathered” upon 
the Edinb. Cat., which Mr. Newman's reviewer claims for him, and in the 
British Flora, amounts to these. In the latter work, the genus Aspidium 
of Swartz is divided into two sections; 1st. those species with orbicular 
involucres, fixed by the centre (Aspidium, Br.), and 2ndly. those with reni- 
form involucres, fixed by the sinus, (Nephrodium, Rich. Br.) The first 
are called Polystichum in the Edinburgh Catalogue, while the latter are 
called Lastrea; and in the genus Asplenium, as defined in British Flora, 
2 species (4. Filiz femina, and A. fontanum,) are, in the Edinb. Cat., 
called Athyrium. Cryptogramma of Brown and Hook. is called Allosorus 
in the Ed. Cat.; Blechnum boreale, Sw. is called Lomaria Spicant, and Tri- 
chomanes brevisetum, Br. and Hook. is the T. speciosum in Ed. Cat. Now 
the whole of these changes (we are not discussing the merits or correct- 
ness of the names) no more originated with Mr. Newman, they are no 
more his original * nomenclature," which is declared “to be toto celo at 
Variance with that so long in use,” than they did with the authors of the 
Edinburgh Catalogue. The genus Polystichum was invented by Roth in 
the year 1800, and is absolutely identical with Aspidium, as it stands in the 
British Flora! including both Polystichum and Lastrea of the Edinburgh 
Catalogue. Lastre originated in M. Bory de St. Vincent in 1824, and 
Was formed to include the Polypodia! Oreopteris, Thelypteris and uni- 
tum. Presl in 1836 altered the character, to make it comprise certain 
Aspidiaceous plants, banished all Bory's species, and was the author of 
the names of the Lastrea as they stand in the Edinb. Cat. Athyrium 
also is a genus of Roth, (1800), (adopted in part by Presl), and the 
Species above mentioned are of the same antiquity. We are well 
aware that Cryptogramma crispa, Br. is the Allosorus of Bernhardi, 
(1806); but the Cheilanthes odora, Sw. is the plant which Bernhardi 
seems to have had in view in constituting that genus; and Presl has 
not improved the genus by the heterogeneous species he has mixed up 
With it, and which have little in common with the plant in question. 
So long ago as 1810, Mr. Brown expressed his opinion that Blechnum 
might perhaps be referred to his Sfegania (Lomaria, Willd.) ; 
and in 1811, Desvaux named it Lomaria Spicant. Our view of the fruc 
tification differs from that of these authors, and we have not preserved 
the name of Swartz without stating reasons for it, and giving a figure 
