Bibliographical Notices. 317 



tration the " Conservatives," then those of Babington will represent 

 the " Liberal " or " Progress " party. 



Such were in the main the respective positions of the two schools 

 five years ago ; and many of our best local botanists thought that 

 the combining process had been used too freely by the " Conserva- 

 tives." 



Now a step diverging still further has been taken on either side : 

 Bentham's Handbook is, in its estimate of the number of British 

 plants, even more remarkably different from Hooker and Arnott's 

 Flora than the latter work is from Babington' s Manual. Mr. Ben- 

 tham's views will represent a third section, which may be termed 

 (from its attachment to ancient precedent) the " High Tory" party, 

 as the minutely-examining school of Alexis Jordan of Lyons will in 

 turn represent the " Radical Reformers," hardly numerous or yet 

 popular, botanically, with us. Those who prefer to rely upon indi- 

 vidual opinion will be the " Free-thinkers" in botany. 



As in politics, each of these parties has its use ; and their different 

 manner of viewing the question arises naturally out of their method 

 of study. 



The physiological botanist is more likely to see resemblances than 

 differences ; for he traces the unity of plan and analogy of function 

 through all the endless varieties of plants. 



The geographical botanist, too, from the very nature of his studies', 

 requires a certain amount of simplicity (would that we could say 

 uniformity !) in the value of species. He cannot hope to follow over- 

 refined " splits " through their whole range, when some of them are 

 only just announced from a few scattered localities, and when it may 

 require years of study, and a greater increase in the number of 

 accurate observers than could be expected, before anything certain 

 can be known of their distribution. 



Hence the " Conservative" school derives no small part of its 

 credit and importance from the high names which are associated 

 with it. But that the study of geographical botany is not altogether 

 opposed to the exact discrimination of species, is sufficiently proved 

 by the example of Mr. H. C. Watson, who, in his * Cybele Britan- 

 nica,' walked nearly hand in hand with Babington's successive 

 editions ; but it must be remembered he was working in a limited 

 field of observation. 



In his more manageable " field," the local botanist of inquiring 

 mind, who has leisure and taste for such studies, will be found care- 

 fully tracing out all these minutiae, not necessarily with the view of 

 founding new species, but with the desire of acquiring a knowledge 

 of his plants as exact as possible. Nor is he by any means to be 

 called a useless contributor to the science. He often shows the way 

 to some species hitherto overlooked; it is to him we are usually 

 indebted for an intimate knowledge of varieties, and especially of 

 "Hybrids ;" and, more than to any other, for the detection of new 

 localities for the Linneean species. Thus it is not to be wondered at 

 if we find Babington' s Manual the favourite text- book with the 

 , most advanced of British botanists. 



