2 REVIEWS. 



terials they have to work upon. Thus, the SolanaceaB, carefully de- 

 scribed by an apparently judicious appreciator of species, might have 

 been doubled in number in the hands of the monographists of the order 

 in the Prodromus. The Myrtacece, elaborated with all the industry, and 

 zeal, and perhaps haste of a young botanist, might have been reduced 

 by one-fourth by the close scrutiny of botanists more accustomed to ap- 

 preciate the variations of species or of individuals. The principles upon 

 which genera are made or adopted are also as different in different mo- 

 nographs as the estimation of species. In one portion of the Flora large 

 natural genera are left intact, and endeavours have been made to group 

 the smaller ones established on individual or uncertain characters; 

 whilst in other parts (e. g. Acanthaceae or Cyperaceee) the great object 

 seems to have been to multiply long-winded, harsh -sounding generic 

 names, with or without characters. 



As to the materials at the disposal of the various monographists, as 

 no part of the Flora is worked up in the country itself, they can only 

 consist of dried specimens, preserved in herbaria, with the memoranda 

 accompanying them, and are chiefly made up of collections made in 

 Brazil by German, French, or English travellers. Among the most im- 

 portant of them, the original and most complete sets are deposited in 

 different capitals of Europe. Those, for instance, of Langsdorff and 

 Kiedel, are at St. Petersburgh ; of Sellow, at Berlin ; of Polil, Schott, 

 and Mikan, at Vienna ; of Martins and Prince Neuwied, at Munich ; of 

 Blanchet, Salzmann, and Yauthier, at Geneva; of A. de St. Hilaire, 

 Claussen, Gaudichaud, Guillemin, and Weddell, at Paris; of Gardner and 

 Spruce, at Kew, &c. The large herbaria in each of these towns contain 

 also, it is true, more or less perfect sets of duplicates from all the others, 

 as well as of the less general collections of Pceppig, Luschnaht, Lhotzky, 

 Regnell, and others ; and for the purposes of this Flora, specimens have 

 been lent from several herbaria ; yet it is only in the towns above men- 

 tioned that access can be had, respectively, to the explanatory memoranda 

 accompanying the original sets. Very few, therefore, of the contribu- 

 tors have been in circumstances which allowed them the full use of all, 

 or even of the greater number, of these complete collections. Most have 

 worked upon one or two complete ones, with duplicates from others. 

 Dr. von Martius has sent the Munich specimens at his disposal, with his 

 valuable memoranda, to, we believe, all his collaborators. The Russian 

 materials have been very liberally lent to several who had applied for 

 them ; the Sellowian and Pohlian materials have been available to most 

 of the German contributors ; everything that Geneva could supply has 

 been lent to those who were at the same time working up corresponding 

 monographs for the Prodromus. Paris and Kew have at different times 

 lent largely for this and other works ; but these herbaria have now ac- 

 quired so much importance and value, that it has been found necessary, 

 in both establishments, to make it a rule no longer to suffer unique or 

 authenticated specimens to be removed, even for a short time ; and 

 visits to Paris and Kew are now almost indispensable to the systematic 

 botanist who would make his monograph at all complete. The great di- 



