Partington's British Cyclopaedia, 247 



Anon, : Botany, Parts I. and II., which include a Treatise on 

 Structural Botany, by, it is understood, Dr. Lindley, Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the London University. Published by 

 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in the 

 Numbers 179. and 181. of their Library of Useful Know- 

 ledge. 64 pages, 80 woodcuts. 



Never previously has so much been done for the extension 

 of botany to the enjoyment of the mass, as in the cheapness 

 of the present treatise, and its excellence considered with its 

 cheapness. Not any botanist should be without this treatise, 

 and presents should be made of copies of it to those in whom 

 it is desired to encourage the cultivation of botany. The 

 author has purposed to treat of botany under the heads 

 structural, physiological, descriptive, and systematic; the 

 three last heads are to be the subjects of treatises yet to be 

 published. 



Partington's British Cyclopaedia (noticed in VII. 382. 605. ; 

 VIII. 127.). — A few days ago my bookseller sent the Fe- 

 bruary part of the British Cyclopaedia (subscribed for by one 

 of my children), and being unoccupied at the moment, I opened 

 and read a few paragraphs. Judge of my astonishment, when 

 I read on the 609th page (the first page of the part), that 

 " fifty-three genera, and eight hundred and thirty-seven spe- 

 cies" of ferns have been " already described." Sprengel, in 

 his Systema Vegetabilium, describes 66 genera, and above 

 1400 species i The order J^quisetaceae is said to contain ten 

 species of Z£quisetum. Sprengel describes 18 ! Of the Ly- 

 copodineae, it is asserted that there are " two genera and 

 nineteen species." Sprengel describes 140 species of Lyco- 

 pddium ; and Drs. Hooker and Greville 190 (in the Botanical 

 Miscellany). Of each of the genera of M.arsi\edcece there are, 

 we are told, a single species. Sprengel has eight Marsil^; 

 and there are two others in the Icones Filicum, by Hooker and 

 Greville ; there are also five Azollce : &c. &c. I had never 

 opened this Cyclopaedia before, and cannot speak as to its 

 merits or demerits in other departments. — A Botanist. Feb. 

 6. 1835. 



[We remember observing, under the treatise on the order 

 y^canthaceae, that the writer had spoken of the contents of 

 the order as they existed some, we think we may say many, 

 years ago ; and had not hinted a word on the fact that Pro- 

 fessor Nees von Esenbeck has elaborated a valuable mono- 

 graph on a rich store of Indian species, which is published in 

 Wallich's Plantce Rariores Asiatic^ vol. iii. 1832. The 

 monograph occupies 48 folio pages.] 



