354 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Sept. 



Hooker may well afford to leave the naming and describing of 

 some twenty varieties of Ranunculus aquatilis and the thirty 

 varieties of Rubus fruticosus to less busy pens. There are in 

 this book some remarkably good features well worked out. Dr. 

 Hooker gives the affinities of each family, oftentimes a note of its 

 properties (p. 259, '' a few are purgative or emetic or intensely 

 bitter or very poisonous"), always its distribution throughout the 

 world and the numbers of genera and species comprised in it. 

 He gives the same details under each genus and the geographical 

 distribution of each species. As regards our personal hobby, the 

 ferns, his notes on such of the species as are also American are 

 remarkably correct, much more so than in any foreign flora we 

 have seen. I note only the following corrections : Tricliomanes 

 radicans occurs in Alabama which is not " trop. Am." ; Asplenium 

 marimim is still given as " Brit. N. America" ; and Scolopen- 

 drium vidgare is said to occur in ^*' N. W. America," while it is 

 known only from Western Canada and New York. Dr. Hooker 

 in orthodox in his mode of quoting authors ; hence he writes the 

 name of a well-known Linnean plant as " Selaginella selaginoides 

 Grai/,'^ thus depriving Link of what little credit may be due to 

 him, but giving compensation elsewhere by writing *' Cystopteris 

 montana Link,''^ which species is certainly Bernhardi's in view of 

 what he wrote in Schrader's neus Journal for 1806, part 2nd, 

 p. 26 ; moreover this old blunderer's impossible genus (Joe. clt., 

 table ii., fig. 9) having been accepted, he may as well get the 

 benefit of any doubt touching one of the species. Dr. H. intro- 

 duces a new name to fern honors, the Acrostichum septentrionale 

 of Linneaus being referred to its proper genus Asplenium as A. 

 septentrionale Hidl, an author unknown to us. It would add 

 greatly to the value of such manuals if the reference were given 

 in addition to the name of the author of the species ; Asplenium 

 germanicum Wets Plantae Crypt, p. 299, or Scolopendrium 

 Smith in Turin Mem., v., p. ^421, do not occupy much space, 

 and are necessary to the proper understandiog of the names 

 quoted. Dr. Hooker writes " Nephrodium cristatum Bich." 

 probably for Richard, and referring to Michaux's Flora, of which 

 work he was author. If this be correct some other author's name 

 must be found to attach to this well-known Linnean plant, inas- 

 much as Prof. Eaton has shewn that Michaux's cristatum is 

 spinulosum, as might have been surmised from the omission of 

 the latter species from that work, though it is much more general 



