Bibliographical Notices, 517 



the plants found In the Madeiran Isles which belong to theThalami- 

 florcus Orders. The author seems to have spared no labour requisite 

 to render his book complete. It is arranged somewhat on the plan 

 of Babington's * Manual of British Botany,' although usually rather 

 fuller in detail than that work, and containing many more critical 

 remarks than were there requisite. The European botanist will find 

 much to study in it ; and even the especially British student cannot 

 fail to rise with profit from its perusal. According to the views of 

 the lamented Professor E. Forbes, Madeira forms one of the remains 

 of the ancient great Atlantic continent, and accordingly possesses 

 a part of its flora. This book tends to show that those views were 

 well founded ; for a very large proportion of the plants here described 

 are also natives of the south-east of Europe, and not a few of them 

 inhabit England and Ireland. 



Mr. Lowe divides the island into four zones relatively to elevation. 

 As might be expected, we find very few British plants noticed as 

 characteristic of the lower two of these zones, which extend from the 

 level of the sea to an elevation of 2.500 feet, and "below; whose upper 

 limit snow never lies longer than a few hours." Viola odorata, 

 Fragaria vesca, Agrimonia Eupatoria, Lobelia urens, Brachypodium 

 pinnatum, Triodia deciimbens, Arrhenatherum avenaceum^ Agrostis 

 canina, and Ceterach officinarwn may be mentioned, and all of them 

 seem to be confined to the second zone. 



Water-plants are of course almost altogether wanting in a country 

 where all the streams are torrents. 



Fumaria capreolata is not included in the flora, but is represented 

 by the F. muralis (Sond.), which is probably confounded with it in 

 Britain and other western parts of Europe. F. Vaillantii is perhaps 

 incorrectly combined with F. parvijiora : in England, they certainly 

 seem to be distinct. 



The name of Viola sylvestris (Lamk.) is adopted for the V. sylva- 

 tica (Fries), with the remark, that the latter name is very inappro- 

 priate in Madeira. Unfortunately, Lamarck's plant is the V. canina, 

 and therefore his is not "the original name" of Fries's plant. 



The Tamarix anglica (Webb) is rejoined to the T.galHca (Linn.), 

 with the remark, concerning the hypogynous disk, that it is " nor- 

 mally 8-10-lobed, the lobes united in pairs, often indistinct or 

 obsolete." 



We are surprised to find that the only Pink is Dianthus proli/er. 

 Silene maritima (Wither.) is said to pass "by a thousand inter- 

 mediate gradations into" S. inflata. 



The name Spergularia is employed in place of the older term, 

 used generically, o^ Lepigonum. Many botanists seem determined 

 to overlook the fact that Persoon (who is always quoted as the au- 

 thority for it) did not consider his group Spergularia as a genus, and 

 that Wahlenberg first placed the plants in a distinct genus, calling 

 them Lepigonum. According to the recognized laws of nomenclature, 

 his name ought therefore to be adopted. 



The Geranium purpureum (Vill.) is separated from Cr.i^oSer^MWww., 

 and the G, Robertianum /3. (Smith) aad G, Eaii (Lindl.) quoted as 



