342 Bibliographical Notices. 



group of islands now, by the regular steam communication, so easy of 

 access, and here shown to be so rich in botanical productions. The 

 species enumerated amount " to 848," omitting (perhaps needlessly) 

 as probably escaped from cultivation, 26 of those included in a cata- 

 logue by Professor La Gasca, lately published in a Report of the 

 Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society. Cryptogamous plants 

 also are excluded, with the exception of Ferns and Characece ; the 

 notice of the other orders of that class being almost confined to a 

 bare list of Lichens, and a similar one of Algae, in which last Cysto- 

 seira barbata, a very doubtful British species, is mentioned. The 

 arrangement is according to the natural orders. Perhaps the Lin- 

 naean form might have proved more convenient to the majority of 

 those likely to use the book as a vade-mecum. It has been the com- 

 piler's endeavour, he says, " to combine brevity with clearness ; he 

 has therefore only introduced descriptions or observations where 

 either of them appeared to be really requisite, or where he conceived 

 that he had some information to give." Thus the bulk of the volume 

 is not increased, as is too commonly the case in local Floras, by cha- 

 racters and descriptions of well-known plants, often mere copies 

 from standard works ; but of such plants the trivial name alone, or 

 with a few synonyms where they appeared requisite, is given with 

 the localities ; " the island in which a plant has been noticed being 

 invariably mentioned," and under the more rare species the parti- 

 cular spots where they have occurred, together with the authority 

 for the stations when the author himself has not gathered the plants. 

 By far the greater number have been gathered by himself, in two 

 visits to the islands in the summers of 1837 and 1838. Twenty-two 

 of the species mentioned have not been published as British. Some 

 of these however are now known to be natives of England. 



The occasional remarks and descriptions are numerous, and of 

 such a nature as to be interesting, as before intimated, to botanists 

 in general, and not merely to those who have an opportunity of visit- 

 ing the islands. They include critical remarks on differences, cor- 

 rections of erroneous descriptions, investigations of synonyms, &c. ; 

 and throughout much regard for accuracy and much acuteness of 

 observation are demonstrated, and much sound information is con- 

 veyed. 



The preface contains, with other matters, an historical sketch of 

 the little that had previously been done in the botany of the islands, 

 beginning with the time of Ray, a short geographical notice of them, 

 and a sketch of their geological structure ; the last from the pen of 

 F. C. Lukis, Esq. of Guernsey. It concludes with an expression of 



