260 REVIEWS. 



ness of type and prodigality of paper, it tends to rim to the opposite 

 extreme to the West Indian Mora, which, considering the number of 

 volumes to which the work will extend, is certainly an evil. The 

 system of De Candolle is followed, the principal orders and genera 

 are preceded by analytic keys to their contained genera and species, 

 and the volume is prefaced by an excellent compendious introduc- 

 tion to Botany, and a glossary of terms, which are rigidly adhered to 

 throughout. Some defects are inevitable in a work carried on by 

 authors residing far apart and using different Herbaria for general 

 purposes : thus, in the treatment of genera and species which are 

 not endemic to the Cape; Dr. Harvey, who is a great traveller, 

 and possesses means of consulting larger Herbaria and more copious 

 suites of specimens, from more varied climates, than Dr. Sonder, 

 naturally tends to take broader views of their variations and dis- 

 tribution. Other defects, common to both, are the partial quotation 

 of numbered collections (the numbers of which should be always 

 quoted or always omitted), and the want of any geographical guide 

 to the localities so profusely referred to for the rarer species, or any 

 division of the enormous area whose plants are described, into na- 

 turally or artificially bounded districts. This is the more inexcusable, as 

 excellent divisions of this kind have been made by E. Meyer and Drege 

 in their "Zwei Pflanzengeographische Documente," distinguished 

 by physical boundaries, geographical and climatal, which illustrate 

 well many botanical features of South Africa. As it is, the impos- 

 sibility of finding in any Gazetteer or map, the villages, streams, 

 hills, and kraals quoted in the Flora Capensis, diminishes its value 

 for all higher purposes of botanical geography. Much might have 

 been done by indicating under the generic character, the general 

 range of the species, and we hope that the authors will accompany 

 the second volume with a sketch-map of the country, divided into 

 districts, and indicate under each species, by a letter or number, the 

 district to which it belongs. 



Before concluding the subject of Dr. Harvey's labours in Colonial 

 Botany, it is only right to add that he is publishing, at his own cost, 

 fascicles of outline lithograph plates, drawn on stone by himself, and 

 descriptions of new, rare, and little known South African plants, 

 of which a volume with 100 illustrations has already appeared. 



Another, also unaided, effort to develop a knowledge of the plants 

 of our Colonies, is the " Enumeratio Plantarum ZeylanisB " of Mr. 

 Thwaites, the accomplished Director of the Peradenia Botanic Gar- 

 den. On Mr. Thwaites' appointment to Ceylon in 1849, he found the 

 want of any guide to the indigenous plants of the island a most serious 

 drawback, to himself especially, who had no previous knowledge 

 of tropical botany ; moreover, he arrived about the time when those 

 energetic measures were being adopted by the Government and the 

 settlers, which have resulted in Ceylon rapidly rising to the position 

 of the most prosperous of our Eastern possessions. With the excep- 

 tion of Moon's indescribably bad catalogue of Ceylon plants (con- 



