80 REVIEWS. 



the species figured in Gosse's Marine Zoology, Pt. I., fig. 125. This we 

 are not surprised at, as even with the aid of Oersted's Plattwlirmer, — an 

 admirable monograph as it is, — it is a most difficult task to identify the 

 species of the genera of this order. 



Flora Vectensis ; being a systematic description of the Phasnogamous or 

 flowering Plants and Ferns indigenous to the Isle of Wight. By the 

 late Wm. Arnold Bromfield, M.D., &c. Edited by Sir W. J. Hooker 

 M.D., &c. 



From the early days of Johnson's " Itinera in agrum Cantianum," published 

 in 1629-1632, down to the present time, it has been a favourite practice 

 of British botanists to illustrate the vegetation of particular provinces or 

 counties, or even of isolated parishes, by writing special treatises on the 

 plants indigenous to them. The value of these district floras has been 

 generally admitted, and one after another has been hailed with interest by 

 the public, until at last it may be said that no country possesses an equal 

 number of such useful guides to the young botanist as England, notwith- 

 standing that there is much still to be done. We have our local floras of 

 Devonshire, of Shropshire, of the Malvern Hills, of Charnwood Forest, of 

 Yorkshire, of Poole, of Liverpool, of East Kent, of the Channel Islands, of 

 Keigate, Surrey ; of Bath, of Oxfordshire, and many of the English dis- 

 tricts ; of Edinburgh, of Glasgow, of Lanarkshire, of the Hebrides, and 

 others in Scotland ; and though district floras are yet nearly desiderata in 

 Ireland, we may at least mention two floras of the whole island, and a 

 sketch of the flora of Cork as a good commencement. Hitherto, no ade- 

 quate account of the vegetation of the Isle of Wight has been published, 

 and this is the more remarkable as there are few places more visited by 

 summer tourists, or so accessible from the metropolis, or that afford within 

 a moderate and strictly defined limit a more interesting field for the 

 botanical student. Situated on the southern coast, and diversified by hill 

 and dale, and with a considerably complex geological structure for so small 

 an island, it enjoys many privileges as a botanical province in miniature. 

 The work before us is, unfortunately, a posthumous one. It had been 

 long in preparation by its accomplished author ; but he was not spared to 

 complete it on the original design, and it is, therefore, notwithstanding the care 

 of the editors, but a fragment. Very properly, as we think, the editors have 

 preserved it as nearly as possible in the state in which it was left, merely 

 inserting between inverted commas and brackets such matter as was abso- 



