Ixxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



published by the Eay Society ; and Mr. Gosse's Actinologia Britan- 

 nica : to these I might add Mr. Lubbock's History of our Smyuthu- 

 ridae, now printing for our Transactions, which reveals to us so much 

 of interest and novelty in a whole series of creatiu'es swarming around 

 us, and yet hitherto allowed to pass almost unnoticed. 



Turning to the Continent, the greater part of Europe comprised in 

 the general districts of France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia is 

 almost as rich as ourselves in general and local Floras. The works of 

 Grenier and Godron, Koch, Reichenbach, Fries, Hartmann, and Lede- 

 bour, give us a very good account of the phsenogamic vegetation of 

 central and northern Europe ; and I notice amongst recent additions, 

 besides a carefully revised edition of Cosson and Germain's Flore 

 des Environs de Paris, the first part of a new and elaborate Flora of 

 Norway, by Professor Blytt, containing the Monocotyledons, upon 

 which the author has evidently bestowed the greatest pains. All 

 that is known of the Arctic Flora has also been condensed and 

 applied more especially to the extension of geographical botany, in 

 Dr. Hooker's important paper in the last part of our Transactions. 

 In the south of Europe the Italians are not far behind. Bertoloni's 

 voluminous Flora Italica is very complete, although not quite up 

 to the present state of science. Parlatore's elaborate Flora Italiana 

 has not yet got beyond Monocotyledons, which occupy two volumes. 

 It is to be hoped that the very extended plan he has adopted may not 

 stand in the way of its completion. In the meanwhile, they have 

 many local Floras, amongst which Gussone's very careful Synopsis of 

 the Sicilian Flora, rather overdone, perhaps, as to species, and Moris's 

 excellent Flora Sardoa (that is to say, of the old kingdom of Sar- 

 dinia), of which Dicotyledons are completed in three quarto volumes, 

 are the most important. The Spanish Peninsula is much more in 

 arrear. There is no professedly complete Flora since the four quartos 

 of Q,uer, two of which are ante-Linnean, and the two last not much 

 more recent ; and most of what we have learnt in modern days of 

 its vast botanical treasures has been from the works of foreigners, 

 especially from the valuable and beautifully illustrated ones of 

 Boissier and Willkomm. The herbaria of Madrid contain great 

 stores of materials on which to found a Spanish Flora; and that 

 Spain is not deficient in botanists well qualified to make use of them 

 is shown by the scattered papers of Graells, Colmeiro, Costa, and 

 others : yet it is again to a foreigner that they leave the task, and 

 Willkomm, author of the splendid Icones Plantarum Europae Austro- 

 occidentalis, above alluded to, assisted by Dr. Lange of Copenhagen, 

 has now issued the first volume of an octave Flora, completing 



