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SCIENTIFIC REVIEWS. 



The British Flora. By W. J. Hooker, LL.D. and Regius Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the University of Glasgow. Longman. 

 London. 1830. 



We remember to have seen, some time ago, a question put iu 

 one of Loudon's publications, what was the best book, both as to 

 cheapness and information, on British plants : and if our recollec- 

 tion serve us right, the answer was that none then in circulation 

 could be recommended ; that Hooker's " Flora Scotica" was a mo- 

 del, but that unfortunately it only applied to part of the kingdom. 

 That the " Flora Scotica" deserved this encomium need not now be 

 told. The conciseness of the remarks and the rejection of useless 

 synonyms, enabled the author to get much into a small space, and 

 the public were so well aware of the utility of such a work, that 

 although only printed in 1821, yet for these two or three years 

 past, the work has been very scarce. A new edition was therefore 

 called for ; and it was now thought expedient to extend it so as to 

 apply to the whole of the British isles. The name of the work has 

 also been changed, but such in few words seems to be the origin, 

 nature, and object of the " British Flora," a work that requires no 

 recommendation on our part, as by this time every practical bota- 

 nist in the three kingdoms must have pronounced it to be the best 

 that has yet been presented to the public. The matter is good, 

 the typography is good, the paper good, and the whole carefully 

 corrected for the press. 



The classification followed is that of Linnaeus, and we firmly be- 

 lieve this to be the best suited to English taste at present. Thus 

 in many copies of the " Flora Scotica" we have slily looked at in 

 the possession of others, we have rarely found that the second part, 

 which included the natural orders and the Cryptogamia, had ever 

 been opened, while the first was " well thumbed." An author and 

 a bookseller must in some degree consult the taste of the public, 

 and therefore in the " British Flora" we have the whole account of 

 the natural orders reduced to a few pages at the end of the volume. 

 Keen advocates as we are for a natural system in aU the branches 

 of natural history, we look on this arrangement with regret, and 

 we cannot help thinking that if the genera and species, accompa- 

 nied with the same judicious remarks and observations that we nnd 

 in the work before us, had been disposed after the Jussieuan or 

 natural method, it must have met with nearly as favourable a 

 reception from the public ; but most assuredly must, at the least, 

 have contributed much towards the final adoption, in this country, 

 of a method that alone in botany merits the name of philosophical. 

 The Linnaean classification is nothing more than a dictionary or 

 grammar with which we cannot burden our memory : the Jussieuan 

 system forms a philosophical and entertaining work, that delights 



