NOTICES OF BOOKS. 319 
in itself a prodigious work. From a rude estimate of the contents of 
the index, we find that the astonishing number of 20,000 names are 
registered, for the 6365 plants described; from which we may assume 
that each species has on the average three names at least. Considering 
how many of the plants described are natives of countries aecessible 
only to Russian botanists, and, having been described by these alone, have 
only one name, this fact indicates the prodigious amount of synonymy 
with which the science is overloaded. On the other hand, a vast num- 
ber of the commoner European species are included, and their synonymy 
and identification have been worked up by Professor Ledebour with the 
same care and accuracy that he has displayed with regard to the rarer, 
and hence to many botanists more interesting, Siberian plants. We 
cannot be too grateful to the author for the labour he has bestowed on 
the investigation of their synonyms, at best an irksome, and too often 
an unsatisfactory, task; for as the ‘Flora Rossica’ must always be a 
standard work of reference, and will hence be invariably quoted, a vast 
amount of synonymy is hereby dispensed with for the future. We can- 
not call those names buried in so admirable a work as this, though it 
would be well that in one point of view they were considered as such, 
for the citation of authorities is too often carried to an absurd extent, 
and savours more of pedantry than of science. The time is approach- 
ing when it will be impossible, even were it desirable, to continue the 
practice, and we should be glad to see limits fixed by authors, and 
stated in the prefaces to their systematic works; in all of those that 
refer to plants more especially Russian, Professor Ledebour’s work 
should be the goal, beyond which citation for general purposes should 
not be carried. 
Of the number of plants common to Russia and Germany, a very 
full list is given at the end of each Natural Order, and we much regret 
that a general summary of these lists has not been appended to the 
fourth volume. ; $ a 
It remains to say something of the execution of this great work, in a 
botanical point of view, and now that the flora of a kindred region, 
the Himalaya Mountains*, is preparing under our own eye, and that 
both the * Flora Rossica,’ and the authentically named specimens illus- 
trative of it (communicated to the Hookerian Herbarium by its illus- 
trious author), are in every-day use, we feel it both a duty and pleasure 
* Included in the * Flora Indica,’ now preparing by Drs. Hooker and Thomson. 
