ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL LITERATURE. 471 



subject, Dr. Lindley's introduction contains references to all those deserving 

 particular attention. 



In Systematic Botany the works of Lindley and Burnett are the best, being, 

 I believe, the only authors that have published complete works adapted for the 

 student of the natural affinities of plants. 



The late Professor Burnett's Outlines is a laboured 'production, and contains 

 a large mass of information, but the want of condensation and simple arrange- 

 ment must ever render it an unacceptable book to beginners. Lindley has 

 published an introduction to the study of the Natural System, called by the 

 rather inappropriate name of Ladies Botany, seeing that the book is just as 

 well adapted for gentlemen as ladies. This book is probably altogether the best 

 that has been published for the commencement of the study of Botany. It at 

 once introduces the beginner to the study of the vegetable kingdom according to 

 its natural affinities, and discards altogether the artificial system of Linnaeus, 

 as prejudicial to the advancement of the science of Botany. 



Lindley's Natural System is the only work in the English language that gives a 

 complete view of the vegetable world arranged according to its natural relations. 

 This is a work that deserves to be increasingly studied, as it is only by studying the 

 vegetable kingdom as a whole that the science of Botany can be advanced, or its 

 true ends as a science be attained. It has been too much the habit of British 

 Botanists to content themselves with studying the species of their own island, 

 whilst their structure and functions, and their relation to the plants of other parts 

 of the world, were entirely neglected. 



Catalogues of plants with descriptions are numerous. Loudon's Cyclopaedia of 

 Plants contains descriptions of nearly 30,000 species cultivated in Great Britain. 

 Sir J. E. Smith's English Flora is the best account of plants indigenous in this 

 country. Dr. Lindley has also publised a Synopsis of British Plants, arranged 

 according to the natural system. Sir \V. J. Hooker has published a single 

 volume containing the British Phaenogamous Plants, and two other volumes 

 containing British Cryptogamia, which may be had separate. There is an 

 illustrated work on English Botany by Sowerby and Smith, containing beautiful 

 drawings of every species ; also drawings of British Fungi by Sowerby. 



Lists of botanical works are given in Sir J. E. Smith's English Flora, in Gray's 

 Arrangement of the British Plants, and other works. 



I have not pretended to furnish you with a list of botanical works, but have 

 referred to the above as those which would be most likely to be useful to your 

 correspondent, or any other of your readers, in commencing the study of Botany. 



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