480 Bibliographical Notices. 



priority in naming his plants ; nor, when neglecting it, can his 

 alterations usually be considered as improvements. Under Polygo- 

 num aviculare we find the P. maritimum, &c., of Ray (it should be 

 P. marinum) placed as the synonym of a variety, which is called 

 littorale after Link, and the P. Roberti (Lois.) added. This is erro- 

 neous, as Dr. Gray will probably admit when he has read the remarks 

 of Grenier (Flore de France, vol. iii. pp. 51 & 52) upon these plants. 

 There appears to be no valid cause for doubting that P. littorale 

 (Link) is synonymous with the above-quoted plant of Ray and the 

 P. Raii of Babington ; and that the P. Roberti (Lois.) is closely 

 allied to P. avicula?'e, if, indeed, it is more than a maritime state of 

 that species, having none of the distinctive characters of the P. lit- 

 torale. 



But we will not enter further into such minute points, and simply 

 add that Dr. Gray's book deserves our highest approbation. 



A Dictionary of Botanical Terms. By the Rev. J. S. Henslow, 

 M. A., Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge, Post 

 8vo. Groombridge, London. 



We have just received a copy of this botanical glossary, and are 

 able to award to it a considerable amount of praise. It is issued 

 from the press in an elegant form, and is illustrated *' by nearly two 

 hundred cuts." Although small, these cuts are usually quite suffi- 

 cient to convey the requisite information ; but nevertheless, we should 

 have been pleased to have seen them executed upon rather a larger 

 scale. 



As the book was issued very slowly, in connexion with Maund's 

 * Botanist' and 'Botanic Garden,' some slight discrepancy between 

 the mode of treatment of terms in its earlier pages and that of similar 

 ones occurring towards the end of the alphabet, is not wonderful. 

 The author's plan improved as he advanced with his task. 



The intention seems to have been to include all the terms which 

 are used technically in botany, and, to a great extent, this has been 

 done. As many of the terms can scarcely be said to be now in use, 

 we wish that the Professor had marked those which he considers 

 obsolete. 



Professor Henslow is well known to possess an especial power of 

 conveying to his pupils the meaning of the hard words used in botany 

 in far too great abundance, and to the employment of which he is 

 thought to be more attached than we think desirable ; we therefore 

 expected to find the definitions both clear and excellent in this book, 

 and are not disappointed. Upon the whole, we consider this Dic- 

 tionary one of the best that has appeared, and strongly recommend 

 it. It is convenient in size, cheap in price, and at the same time 

 contains, as we deduce from a remark in the preface, about 2000 

 words. 



After rather a careful examination of it, we do not find much to 

 notice as requiring amendment : certainly laciniate is wrongly ex- 

 plained by fringed : asper is omitted, and its definition transferred 



