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THE BRITISH FI.ORA IN 1895. 



The London CatalogTue of British Plants. Part I. Ninth 

 Edition. London : George Bell and Sons, 1S95. 6d. ; with cloth 

 covers and interleaved, ij-. 

 Considering that the last edition of our standard list of British plants 

 was issued in i8S6, and that since that time " no new Edition of either 

 of our native Floras has appeared" ; and bearing in mind the great 

 advances made in British botany during this period, particularly in our 

 knowledge of critical genera, and in the comparison and correlation of 

 British forms with continental, it is not to be wondered that botanists 

 have awaited with some impatience the issue of the Ninth Edition of 

 London Catalogue, which will now be welcomed as affording a complete 

 and up-to-date list of the native flora, a census of the distribution of that 

 flora in the larger island, and an invaluable check-list for purposes of 

 cataloguing and of exchange. 



The present issue is edited, like the last, by Mr. F. J. Hanbury, F.L.S., 

 but the number of assistants in various groups is so large, and the 

 assistance they have given so considerable, that the Catalogue might 

 almost be considered as the collective work of E nglish systematic botanists. 

 Messrs. Groves are responsible for the batrachian Ranunculi, and of 

 course for the Characece ; Mr. Marshall for Epilobium ; Mr. Beeby for 

 Viola, A7ithy His, andj'i(ncacece] Mr. Townsend for £upArasia; Mr. E-F. Linton 

 for Thalictrutn and Alchemilla; Mr. W. M. Rogers for Rubus 2Md. Rosa ; the 

 late Dr. F. B. White for Salix ; and Mr. Bennett for Potamogeton and Carex. 

 The last-named, and Miss Bennett, have executed the laborious task of 

 bringing the census numbers up to date. 



In glancing through the Catalogue (which, we note, has swelled 

 from 40 pages in the last edition to 50 in the present), several con- 

 spicuous changes strike the eye. The authorities for generic names 

 have been added, but pre-Linnean authorities are not quoted. The 

 sub-division of certain critical genera has extended enormously — a 

 necessary if somewhat alarming result of the close attention which they 

 have been receiving of late years in Britain and the Continent. Thus, 

 Rubus now runs to just 100 " species," and about as many varieties : 

 while Hieracium even excels this, numbering 104 " species," and varieties 

 ad lib. ; those of H. viuroriun, alphabetically indexed, exhausting all the 

 letters with the exception of Z ! But whatever may be the value of these 

 myriad forms in relation to our accustomed conception of the term 

 species, and while the advisability of burdening these unfortunate genera 

 with such an overwhelming mass of names may be open to question, no 

 one can doubt the necessity of carefully studying their variation, their 

 distribution, and their habits. 



The number of hybrids in the new Catalogue is also striking. In Viola, 

 Carduus, Primula, Linaria, and Runiex this feature is apparent, but much 

 more so in Epilobiui/i. and Salix, where every species apparently hybridizes 

 with almost every other. In Euphrasia a new departure is made, a 

 suggestion of trinomial nomenclature being introduced ; the species is 

 divided into four varieties, which are again divided into a number of 

 forms. 



