LITERARY NOTICES. 



371 



ferent objects of study all these prac- 

 tical questions turn upon a knowledge 

 of psychology, which, if we are ever 

 to have a science of education, must be 

 so sufficient that it can be applied to 

 individual cases. Prof. Bain is clearing 

 the ground for a thorough-going dis- 

 cussion of that element of culture which 

 has been more misunderstood and per- 

 verted than any other the subject of 

 discipline. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Synoptical Flora of North America. 

 By Asa Gray, LL. D. Vol. II., Part I., 

 Gamopetalae after Composite. New 

 York : Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. 

 8vo. Pp. 402. Price, $6.00. 



We can in no way do such excellent 

 justice to this comprehensive and elaborate 

 work, as by quoting, in full, the able review 

 of it that appeared in the New York Tribune : 



" The ' Flora of North America,' by Drs. 

 John Torrey and Asa Gray, was commenced in 

 1838, and appeared in numbers, at convenient 

 intervals, until 1840, when, having reached, in 

 the accepted arrangement of orders, to the end 

 of Compositse, its publication ceased. So valu- 

 able was this ' Flora ' to the working botanists, 

 that its discontinuance was a source of great 

 disappointment ; and those who were not aware 

 of the reasons which made its intermissions al- 

 most imperative were not a little impatient. 

 To those best advised, the discontinuance of the 

 work was known to be really in the interest of 

 American botany. The acquisition of Texas 

 and of new territory at the close of the war with 

 Mexico essentially changed our botanical as it 

 did our geographical area. Up to that time, our 

 knowledge of the far Northwest, the far West, 

 and the Pacific coast, was mainly due to the la- 

 bors of European explorers, to which were add- 

 ed the results of the journeys of Nuttall, Wyeth, 

 Long, and a few others, but nothing like a gen- 

 eral exploration had been made of those vast 

 fields which have since yielded such rich botau- 

 ical harvests. The two journeys of Fremont, 

 the forced march to the Pacific on the line of the 

 Gila, by Emory, with the volunteer expeditions 

 of Lindheimer, Wislicenus, Fendler, Wright, 

 and some others, resulted in such a wealth of 

 new material, opening, in some cases, an en- 

 tirely new flora, that it at once became evident 

 to its authors that the ' Flora of North Ameri- 

 ca ' could not yet be written with any approach 

 to completeness. These explorations indicated 

 that the number of genera in the families, and 

 the number of species in the genera, already 

 published in the 'Flora,' were in many cases 



doubled, and it became evident that the authors 

 must either continue a work which would be 

 unsatisfactory when finished, or suspend it for 

 a time, and devote themselves to the elabora- 

 tion of the rapidly-accumulating new material, 

 which would otherwise pass into other hands. 

 They wisely adopted the latter course, a de- 

 cision which proved all the more judicious 

 when the survey of the Mexican boundary and 

 the surveys of numerous routes for a Pacific 

 railroad added most essentially to the already 

 rich collections, and opened to botanical explo- 

 ration such a breadth of territory that but few 

 important localities were left unvisited. Be- 

 sides these Government expeditions, and nearly 

 contemporaneous with the later of them, came 

 the private explorations of Parry, Hall, and 

 Harbour, and others, while the rapid settlement 

 of mining and other localities brought out a 

 number of local collectors, who made important 

 additions to the rapidly accumulating treasures. 

 The State Geological Survey of California, and 

 the survey under Mr. Clarence King under the 

 fortieth parallel thanks to Sereno Watson's 

 energy and perseverance also yielded impor- 

 tant botanical results. The time has now ar- 

 rived when the ' Flora of North America ' may 

 be written with the hope of presenting a fairly 

 complete record. Of course new species and 

 new genera are yet to be discovered, but no such 

 bonanza of botanical riches as the past thirty 

 years have developed can be looked for in the 

 future, and our present knowledge may proper- 

 ly be embodied in a work which will serve as a 

 standard, around which the clustering of future 

 accessions will be an easy matter. 



"One of the illustrious botanists, whose 

 name appeared as joint author of the earlier 

 ' Flora,' and which will ever be identified with 

 North American botany, has passed away ; but 

 the results of Dr. Torrey's many years of labor 

 since the first 'Flora' was discontinued will 

 appear in the new work, the pages of which 

 will show how industriously he labored during 

 that long interval. 



" We have said that the present is a most fit- 

 ting time for making a ' Flora of North Ameri- 

 ca ; " it is so, not only in the fullness of mate- 

 rials, but especially so that its author is in the 

 fullness of his industrious and useful life. Pre- 

 pared, as no other can be, by years of study of 

 our plants from every part of the country, and 

 also by the experiences of extended field-ob- 

 servations on two journeys to the Pacific coast, 

 our first botanist presents this, which we may 

 regard as his crowning work. It is fortunate 

 that, just at this time, those eminent botanists 

 Bentham and Hooker have presented in their 

 ' Genera Plantarum ' a complete revision of the 

 genera, made, so far as American genera are 

 concerned, in full sympathy and correspondence 

 with Dr. Gray. While, in the ' Flora,' Dr. Gray 

 may not adopt all the views of these gentlemen, 

 it is not the less gratifying to American botanists 

 to know that the genera, so recently elaborated 

 by three such botanists as Gray, Bentham, and 

 Hooker, are likely to be accepted as established 

 for a long while to come. 



