136 . THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



and third volumes of the Phytologist containing several notices of 

 its occurrence. 



In 184^9 the botanical student must have welcomed J. H. 

 Balfour's Manual of Botany, and the still more valuable translation 

 by Edwin Lankester of Schleiden's Principles of Scientijic Botany. 

 The Botanical Gazette, a monthly journal edited by A. Henfrey and 

 others, was commenced in 1841), and continued to 1851. It con- 

 tains many interesting papers by C. C. Babington, H. C. Watson, 

 Rev. W. A. Leighton, and other well-known botanists. An early 

 number in 1850 contained an abstract of Fries's SynibolcB ad His- 

 toriam Hieracionini, which must have opened the eyes of many of 

 its readers. About this time this genus [Hieraciuni) was beginning 

 to be seriously studied by Messrs. .James Backhouse, J. G. Baker, 

 and others, and many additions were made to the British list of 

 species. (See Phytol. iii. 99G and iv. 805, 8U.) 



The events of 1852 were the appearance of J. H. Balfour's 

 excellent Class Book of Botany, entirely superseding former works 

 of the like character, and Henfrey's translation of Von Mohl on 

 the vegetable cell. Passing on to 1855, we have in Wilson's 

 Brijoloyia Britannica a valuable addition to the literature of mosses; 

 and next year James Backhouse published his well-known Mono- 

 graph of the BritisJi Hieracia, m which he described thirty-three 

 species as British, many of them only then recently distinguished. 



In 1857 the Rev. M. J. Berkeley published his Introduction to 

 Cryptoganiic Botany, and in the same year appeared Henfrey's 

 Eienientary Course of Botany : and this brings us to 1858, when a 

 most useful book was published, namely, the excellent Handbook of 

 the British Flora . . . for tlie use of Beyinners and Amateurs, by 

 George Bentham. The author of this delightful book had already 

 distinguished himself by his Monograph on tlie Genera and Species 

 of the Labiatce (1832-6), and subsequently obtained a world-wide 

 reputation by the great Genera Plantaruni, produced by him in 

 conjunction with Sir J. D. Hooker, 1862-83. In the preface to this 

 Handbook the author, after saying that he "had been frequently 

 applied to to recommend a work which should enable persons 

 having no previous knowledge of botany to name the wild flowers 

 they might gather in their country rambles, and that he had found 

 this difticult, as the standard floras required too much previous 

 scientific knowledge for a beginner or mere amateur," goes on to 

 say that he "here attempted a descriptive enumeration of all the 

 plants wild in the British Isles distinguished by such characters as 

 mio^ht be readily perceived by the unlearned eye, and expressed in 

 ordinary language, using such technical terms only as appeared 

 indispensable for accuracy, and whose adopted meaning could be 

 explained in the work itself." This being his object, he at first 

 thought that a mere compilation might be sufficient, "the British 

 plants being so well-known, and having been so repeatedly de- 

 scribed with so much detail ; but he soon found that a careful 

 comparison and verification of the characters upon the plants them- 

 selves was necessary." He then states that the descriptions had 

 been drawn up from British specimens, and compared with the 



