DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



287 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



Browne's Trees of America. — Mr. Browne 

 has favored us with some remai-ks touching the 

 review of his work in our October number. Our 

 rather crowded columns this month do not allow 

 us to print it entire, as we would willingly do. 



He remarks, "I have observed several errors, 

 probably caused by oversight, and one or two pas- 

 sages that would have a tendency to mislead the 

 public." 



Mr. Browne complains that Mr. Loudon has 

 often been a borrower from his first work on trees, 

 the " Sylva Americana;" and remarks that he has 

 given credit to Loudon in the body of the Trees 

 of America "more than one hundred times." This 

 is true, but it in no way affects our criticism, as 

 the credit is given for particular passages, when 

 whole pages are copied without credit. 



" In justice to your readers," says Mr. Browne, 

 " could you not with propriety have informed them, 

 that there are, at least, fifty trees described in my 

 work, which are not even mentioned by Loudon !" 

 We are obliged to reply to this, that, after 

 carefully comparing the two works again, we can- 

 not find Jive species. If Mr. Browne will point 

 them out, and name them, we will do him the jus- 

 tice to publish them to our readers. 



The truth is this work has disappointed those who 

 looked for something new and valuable on the sub- 

 ject of American forest and ornamental trees. To 

 show that others share with us in this opinion, we 

 quote the following criticism on the work, from 

 the last number of Silliman's Journal of Science 

 and Art. It bears the initials of Gray, the pro- 

 fessor of botany at Harvard University, and one 

 of the authors of Torrey and Grays Flora, certainly 

 an authority of the highest rank on such subjects: 



" Though we find no statement restricting the 

 general title, ' Trees of America,' we presume, on 

 the whole, that those of the United States only are 

 intended, which may be termed, par excellence, 

 American, in the same way that the continental 

 title is applied to our citizens abroad. What is 

 meant by the 'foreign trees of America,' is not so 

 clear, since Mr. Browne has omitted many of the 

 common hardy exotics cultivated among us, while 

 he has given such as the Pistachio nut, the Para- 

 guay Tea, the Prunus avium of Europe, (which 

 stands in his book under the name of ' The Wild 

 Cherry Tree,' to mislead the general reader,) the 

 Lauras nobilis, or True Laurel, and lastly the 

 Camphor Tree, which is surely 'foreign ' enough. 

 On the other hand, the greater part of our Thorns, 

 our Wild Crab trees, the Southern Prickly Ash, 

 two of our Rhododendrons, and a large portion of 

 our commonest taller shrubs, are entirely unnotic- 

 ed; not that shrubs do not fall within the range of 

 the work; for the low Canailian Barberry, the 

 ^sculus macrostachija and the Ilex vomitoria, etc., 

 are given in full. Upon examination, we find the 

 book closes abruptly with the Elm family; the 

 Amentaceous and Coniferous trees, that is, our 

 principal forest trees, being left to the contingen- 

 cy of another ' supplementary volume,' to be pub- 

 lished or not, as circumstances may warrant ; which 



we suspect is not exactly according to the terms 

 of subscription. We should not have remarked 

 upon this, nor upon the singular notion of making 

 the Oaks, Hickories and Pines, play a supplemen- 

 tary part to Oranges, Almonds, Pomegranates, 

 Myrtles, Figs and Camphor trees, in a work on the 

 ' trees of this country, more complete and exten- 

 sive than had hitherto been published,' if there had 

 been any indication upon the title page or cover, 

 or even an explicit statement in the preface, that 

 this is only the first volume of a work on our trees, 

 and in itself incomplete. This is ' a trick of the 

 trade,' for which, perhaps, the author himself is 

 not directly responsible. That we do not consider 

 Mr. Browne as high botanical authority will not 

 be surprising, when it is seen that he describes 

 the Ohio Buckeye as a variety of the common 

 Horse Chestnut, the Rhus glabra as a variety of 

 the Rhus typhina, the Rohinia hispida, or Bristly 

 Locust, as a vai'iety of the Pseudacacia, or common 

 Locust tree; states his confident belief that the 

 Choke Cherry and the Wild Black Cherry (Cerasus 

 virginiana and C. scroti na) are one and the s.ame 

 species; confounds in the same way all our species 

 of Ash under Fraxinus americana, and all our 

 Elms, even the Wahoo and Slippery Elm, under 

 Ulmus americana. Some of these mistakes are 

 copied from Loudon; but :m American writer on 

 the trees of his own country, who professes to ex- 

 ercise his own judgment on these points, should 

 have corrected such obvious errors, instead of add- 

 ing to them. Some liberty is taken with the poe- 

 try as well as the botany. A part of those beau- 

 tiful lines — 



' "Wise with the lore of centuries, 

 AVhat tales, if there were tongues in trees, 

 Those giant oaks could tell,' — 



are 'conveyed ' to the Pittsfield Elm, without a sign 

 to indicate the change. The fruit of Cratcegus 

 spathulata is said to be of ' the smallness of a grain 

 of mustard seed,' (p. 274.) The venerable Hales 

 is said to be the author of 'Vegetable Statistics,' 

 instead of Vegetable Statics. Mr. Browne, follow- 

 ing Michaux, says, ' The wood of Oleu ameri- 

 cana is excessively hard and difficult to cut and 

 split: hence the provincial name of Devilwood,' 

 (p. 382.) An insufficient reason, one would think, 

 for the besfowal of such an ungracious cognomen. 

 We have heard a better and more probable expla- 

 nation, viz., that the wood in burning snaps loud- 

 ly, throwing the fragments explosively from the 

 hearth. We should like to know our authors au- 

 thority for the following curious statement respect- 

 ing the sassafras tree. ' The most interesting his- 

 torical recollection connected with the tree is, 

 that it may be said to have led to the discovery of 

 America, as it was its strong fragrance, smelt by 

 Columbus, that encouraged him to persevere when 

 his crew were in a state of mutiny, and enabled 

 him to convince them that land was not far off,' 

 (p. 417.) Acute olfactories the great navigator 

 must have had, to snufT the fragrance of Sassafras 

 groves in Florida, more than five hundred miles 

 ofT! Besides, now-a-days, the flowers of Sassafras 



