94- NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Our author however is too candid in his observations to allow us to 

 suppose for one moraent that he has added to the number of Ferns 

 from the vain love of species-making, or from any want of care. All 

 his new species are characterized, and the supposed distinctions care- 

 fully noticed, and in very many cases figured also, and no dogmatical 

 opinion is anywhere expressed : the near affinities to other species, as 

 well as the discrepancies, are alike noticed. No doubt every botanist 

 is free to exercise his own judgment, and different botanists may be 

 expected to entertain different views regarding the limitation of species 

 as of genera ; but the needless multiplication of names is not only 

 itself an inconvenience, but it renders it more and more difficult for a 

 tyro to determine with which of these many kinds the plant he is in- 

 vestigating best agrees ; the differences being so small, and finding it 

 not precisely to agTce with any, he considers he has another new species 



to add to the list. 



The very first species in the book before us, Grammitis nana for 

 example, we consider to be truly G. Australis of Brown, which now 

 rejoices in five names. Mi;. Brown's G. Australis^ and G, Billardieri, 

 "Willd.3 were published simultaneously in Germany and in England ; 

 Mr. Colenso considered that he had found a difference in the hairiness 

 of the plant, and called it G. ciliatd j Bory published it under the 

 name of G. scolopendrina ; but Dr. Hooker has shown that this little 

 Pern has a wide geographical range. Specimens in our Herbarium 

 prove it to be a native of Tasmania, Australia, Lord Auckland's and 

 Campbell's Islands, New Zealand, Fuegla, Peru, the Sandwich and 

 Falkland Islands, and Tristan d'Acunha. 



Two new genera are proposed, one Diellia (comprising three species 

 of the Sandwich Islands), " which differs from Schizoloma principally 

 in the interrupted sori ; in this respect it has a considerable affinity 

 with Synaphlebium, but in that genus the costa is excentric or want- 

 ing." The two kinds figured are handsome plants, but surely very 

 closely allied specifically ; the third species (not figured) " is very dis- 

 tinct in character from the two others :" the plants are unknown to 

 us. The second genus is Dlc/didopteriSy "which has the habit oi Mo- 

 nogramme^ but no lateral veins or indusium. Its nearest affinity is to 

 Blechnum, from which it differs in habit, venation, and the thick, 

 scarcely altered indusium; the fronds being so narrow that the spo- 

 rangia of the two sori become confluent." Perhaps, in regard to the 



