NOTICES OF BOOKS. 219 
execute a series of coloured drawings in all stages of the flowering 
and fruiting, with analyses, showing its curious structure. . A selec- 
tion has been made from them, which is now in preparation for a 
work in thin folio, to consist of four plates, consisting of—1. A re- 
duced figure of the entire plant. 2. A view of the flower in the act of 
expanding, together with as much of the foliage, &c. (in situ) as the 
paper will admit, nat. size. 3. A fully-developed flower, and do. do. 
4. A vertical section of a fully-developed flower, nat. size, together 
with various dissections and analyses, of the natural size, or magnified, 
as the subject may require. The work is, by permission, to be dedi- 
eated to Her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland, and will be 
accompanied with descriptive matter by Sir W. J. Hooker. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
GENERA ET SPECIES PALMARUM, QUAS IN ITINERE PER BRASILIAM 
DESCRIPSIT ET ICONIBUS ILLUSTRAVIT C. F. P. DE Martius. 
Fol. maz. Monachii. 1823-1850. 
If ever an author in any branch of natural science was entitled to 
say with Horace, Éwegi monumentum aere perennius, that author is 
assuredly Professor Charles Frederick Philip von Martius, of Munich. 
He has revelled among Palms almost all his life; at first in imagina- 
tion only,—afterwards, for a long series of years, in full reality ; apply- 
ing to them his severest studies and researches. “In palmis semper- 
parens juventus, im palmis resurgo,’ is the motto attached to the 
likeness of our excellent friend, at this moment before us ; and certainly, 
the fruit of allthis has been, the completion of a general work on his : 
favourite family—one of the most difficult—such as has never been 
surpassed, if ever rivalled, in the literature of Natural History. This 
superb work, this omxòv, intended at first to be confined to 
Brazilian Palms only, but afterwards extended so as to comprise a 
history of the entire family, contains the anatomy, morphology, geo- 
graphy, as well as detailed generic and specific descriptions, of all its 
known members, illustrated by a vast number of large, exquisitely- 
coloured figures, representing very many species in their natural state 
of growth, together with the most minute structural details. We 
cannot refrain from subjoining the elegant preface, as it will explain 
the nature of the performance better than anything we can say ; and, 
2r2 
