94 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
WILLKOMM, MORITZ: Icones et descriptiones Plantarum Novarum, cri- 
ticarum et rariorum Europe Austro-Occidentalis, precipue Hispanie. 
Imp. 4to. Fasc. I.  Lipsiw, 1852. 
The present is the first fasciculus of a work intended to include an 
account, with coloured figures, of the many discoveries that have been 
made of late years in Spain and Portugal, including also however the 
south-west portion of France, Corsica, the Balearic Isles, ete. These 
are undertaken by Dr. Moritz Willkomm, Privatdocent in the University 
of Leipsic, himself a distinguished Spanish traveller. The work com- 
mences with the Thalamiflore, and the group Silenez, and the present 
portion is devoted entirely to the genus Dianthus, and not here brought 
to a conclusion. Nine species are described and figured; but not one 
is considered new, and to our eyes the specific differences would seem 
very questionable of not a small portion of them. The author's distin- 
guishing phrases (at least they stand in the place of such in other 
works, immediately following the specific name, —though written in the 
nominative case) extend in most instances to one-half of these ample 
pages, and are in reality full descriptions. We trust that the future | 
numbers may present a greater variety, and plants of more general in- 
terest than are here discussed. That the materials are ample there can 
be no doubt, as may be learned by the following extracts from the 
prospectus. 
* Since M. Boissier directed the attention of botanists to Spain, by the 
surprising results of his exploration of the provinces of Malaga and 
Granada, which, undertaken in 1837, and embracing only a period of 
five months, gave rise to the celebrated work, entitled * Voyage bota- 
nique dans le Midi de l'Espagne," an immense number of new and per- 
fectly unknown plants have been found, and discoveries made, which 
in Europe seem scarcely possible. Few of the new genera discovered 
in different parts of Spain, particularly in the south-west, since Boissier's 
first journey, have as yet had drawings made of them ; some even have 
been but imperfectly, if at all, described, and are not to be found com- 
plete in any herbarium in Europe. The same may be said of those 
discovered in Portugal, France, and the islands before named. In these 
countries, particularly in the south-west of France and in Corsica, a 
