NOTICES OF BOOKS. 59 



orientale de Tile, a partir du 83° longitude occidentale du meridien 

 de Paris, jusqu'a la pointe de May si, extremite orientale de Cuba, a 

 ete peu ou point visitee par les naturalistes." — What may not then be 

 expected from so excellent a collector as Mr. Charles Wright ? 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



De Candolle : Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. 

 Pars XIV. sectio prior, sistens Polygonaceas, Proteaceas, aliosque 

 minores Ordines Monochlamydearum. 



The successive appearance of the volumes of De Candolle's c Pro- 

 dromus ' mark as many epochs in the progress of Descriptive Botany. 

 Ever since the publication of the first volume, botanists have felt its 

 influence in many ways; the fact of such or such a Natural Order 

 being about to be taken up by the contributors to the - Prodromus/ 

 caused the postponement of the labours of others who were preparing 

 to publish upon it, and in very many instances determined the desti- 

 nation of extensive collections which might otherwise have remained 

 unpublished to this day. Nor has its influence been less directly felt 

 after the appearance of each Natural Order than before it, for it seems 

 to put for the time a check to progress in the field it has occupied : if 

 the monographs have been well done, there remains for a period com- 

 paratively little to add ; if ill, the confusion is so great that it will take 

 many years and a careful study of the same materials from which they 

 were elaborated, to restore order ; and before this is accomplished, any 

 partial attempts to elucidate the subject very generally add to the con- 

 fusion. 



Fortunately for botanical science, the honour and labour of carrying ou 

 the ■ Prodromus/ since the death of its illustrious projector, has fallen 

 into the hands of able and conscientious workers more often than the 

 contrary ; and it is no small tribute to the goodness of the whole work, 

 that few or no better monographs of any extensive Orders, not hitherto 

 included in it, have appeared during its progress than those which 

 itself contains. Amongst the very best of these are two which have 

 just appeared in the first part of the fourteenth volume, namely the 

 Protectee* by Meisner, and the Polygons by Meisnc r and Bnthani, 



