258 REVIEWS. 



ment, and who warmly took up the subject, so successfully re- 

 presenting to Mr. Labouchere, then Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies, the expediency and utility of such undertakings, that Sir 

 W. Hooker was desired to name a colony of which he thought it de- 

 sirable to publish a Mora, the extent of the work required, and the 

 author he would recommend to conduct it. After full deliberation 

 the British "West Indian Islands were selected for the experiment, 

 for the following reasons. The materials in Herbaria were pretty 

 complete and good ; Government Botanic Gardens exist at Jamaica 

 and Trinidad, for whose efficiency such a work was indispensable ; 

 great efforts were being made by the Governors of Jamaica, St. Kitts, 

 Dominica, and Trinidad, and by many intelligent colonists, to develop 

 the productive resources of those islands ; and lastly, in a scientific 

 point of view, the Flora was well worth working out, for since the 

 publication of Swartz's " Flora IndisB Occidentalis " in 1806, and 

 M'Fadyen's never completed Flora of Jamaica, no attempt had been 

 made, even to enumerate, the plants of any British "West Indian 

 Island. 



The botanist, who, for his scientific attainments and special 

 knowledge of the vegetation of the Spanish Main, was selected as 

 author, is Dr. Grrisebach, Professor of Botany in G-oettingen, a 

 gentleman personally well known and highly esteemed amongst Eng- 

 lish Botanists, who has published on Carribean plants, and possesses 

 so perfect a command of English, as to be able to write the Flora in 

 that language. Three parts of Dr. Grisebach's Flora have already 

 appeared, and the fourth, nearly completing the Dicotyledonous orders, 

 is now in the press. The materials have hitherto been most carefully 

 and conscientiously worked up and described. The older Herbaria 

 of Patrick Brown, Sloane, and Swartz have been studied, the result of 

 which has been the fixing of many doubtful synonyms, and the reference 

 of numerous obscure and imperfectly known species to better known 

 ones, while much light has been thrown upon various obscure and inte- 

 resting plants. In various cases Dr. Grrisebach has established excellent 

 reforms in generic characters, has reduced (judiciously in most cases) 

 a number of doubtful and bad genera to subgenera and synonyms, 

 and, in short, has left the orders he has completed in a very satisfac- 

 tory state in a systematic and descriptive point of view. The defects 

 of the work are, the arrangement of the natural orders, in which Dr. 

 Grrisebach follows a sequence which is peculiar to himself, and presents, 

 as a whole, no advantage over those current amongst Botanists ; but 

 which is confusing to the beginner, who in all cases must have learnt 

 botany by some other method, and troublesome to the professed bota- 

 nist, who has to consult the index to find the place of every Dicotyle- 

 donous genus or order. The typographical arrangements too, are 

 not so good as they might be, the type being too small and crowded, 

 and the contractions too numerous. These latter, however, are ble- 

 mishes for which the author is not altogether responsible, as they arose 

 from a desire to reduce the price of the work to the smallest possible. 



