Scientific Reviefvi> 347 



cate, and certainly, we believe, the most difficult to be studied 

 from dried specimens; nevertheless, Mr. Lindley has by his assi- 

 duity put forth a work that, were he not already known, would 

 have stamped him, after Brown and Hooker, the most promising 

 British botanist of the day. 



In the second edition of his " Species Plantarum," in 1763, Lin- 

 naeus reduced all the known Orchideae to eight genera; in 1789, 

 Jussieu extended them to thirteen; in Willdenow's " Species 

 Plantarum" there are twenty-seven ; and Richard, in Persoon's 

 *' Synopsis," increased them soon afterwards to thirty-four. The 

 organization of these plants was, however, far from being under- 

 stood. Swartz, in a separate treatise on the genera and species of 

 this family, and in his Flora of the West Indies, first attempted new 

 characters for them ; but it was reserved for Mr. Brown, the first 

 botanist of this or of any former age, to point out the real structure 

 of these curious plants, and to show that the grounds on which their 

 genera ought to befounded, consist in the different modifications pre- 

 sented by the anther. Many new orchideous genera were instituted 

 by that distinguished naturalist in his " Prod. Florae Nov. HoU," 

 and in the 2d edit, of the " Hortus Kewensis;" and shortly afterwards 

 Richard applied an extension of the same principles to the species 

 found in Europe, in the investigation of which he altered some of 

 Brown's genera. Since that time, many genera have been added 

 "by different botanists, by Kunth, by Hooker, by Lindley, Thouars, 

 Achille Richard, Blume, and others. In the " Sceletos Orchi- 

 dearum," a mere arranged catalogue of generic names, published by 

 Mr. Lindley in 1826, 157 genera are introduced ; but it is almost 

 impossible to say to what extent they are to be multiplied in his 

 present work. The Malaxidece* have alone appeared, and there 

 we have 47 genera ; in the " Sceletos" the same tribe consisted 

 of 21 genera, so that if the whole Orchideae are to be subdivided 

 in the same proportion, w^ shall have about 350 genera up to the 

 present day. 



We can by no means give our support to this minute subdivision 

 of genera, and we differ in toto from an opinion lately expressed by 

 M. Don, that, by so dividing genera and families, '* the individuals 

 composing them become better understood, and their characters 

 more accurately investigated." We know that by those who are 

 not professed liotanists, this continual change among the genera is 

 exceedingly disliked, and a practical botanist does not require this 

 subdivision to make him open -ids eyes. If this system were to be 

 carried on much longer we should have the generic become the ul- 

 timate positive characters, and attribute to the groups in a natural 

 family the same ideas we formerly applied to genera. Achille 



• We have some hesitation in thinking that the termination of this word, as 

 the name of a group in a great natural order, is selected according to the rules so 

 well laid down by De Candolle. 



VOL. II 2 Y 



