1865.] REVIEW — FLORA OF THE WEST INDIES. 151 



plant3 and vascular Cryptogamia, with full indices and a table of 

 the local names. Dr. Gray says of it : " The preface gives 

 an account of the circumstances under which the work was 

 undertaken, and of the materials which the author so sedu- 

 lously and promptly elaborated. West-Indian botany was 

 very difficult and confused : ' Almost all the principal authors 

 who have written on West-Indian plants belong to the last 

 century, and consequently to the Linnaean school, and a general 

 synopsis of West-Indian plants has never before been attempted, 

 not even by Swartz, whose flora contains descriptions of his new 

 species only, with a few remarks on allied forms.' Moreover, the 

 British West Indies offer only the separate fragments of a larger 

 flora. Trinidad, as its geographical situation indicates, natu- 

 rally belongs to the flora of Venezuela and Guiana. The northern 

 Bahamas might be supposed to have a vegetation very like that of 

 East Florida, from which they are separated by the Gulf Stream ; 

 but this seems not to be the case. ' Jamaica, again, from its 

 mountainous character and more distant position ; most of the Lee- 

 ward islands, from being wooded volcanos ; and the majority of the 

 windward ones, with a dry climate and a low calcareous soil, — form 

 three divisions of this tropical archipelago, which show as many 

 peculiarities. Thus the whole of the British West Indies, as com- 

 prised in this flora, may be divided into five natural sections, each 

 with a distinct botanical character.' Altogether they amount to 

 about 15,000 English square miles, or nearly twice the area of 

 Wales. But yet Hayti alone is nearly twice, and Cuba nearly 

 thrice, as large as all the British Islands together, and not only 

 far richer in vegetation, but far less explored ; the publications of 

 Jacquin, Swartz, &c, having been almost confined to the British 

 possessions; so that it was with old species mainly, that Br. Grise- 

 bach had to deal, those which were ' the foundation, indeed, of our 

 scientific knowledge of the flora of tropical America. And these 

 have so often been misunderstood that their synonyms are far 

 more numerous than their numbers.' A general West-Indian 

 flora being out of the present question, we learn with interest 

 that Br. Grisebach is preparing a special paper on the geographi- 

 cal range of the West-Indian plants, including the capital island 

 of Cuba, which Mr. Charles Wright has so industriously and suc- 

 cessfully explored through its length and breadth, and is expecting 

 still further to explore." 



