52 Journal of Travel a7id Natural History 



easy to understand the seductions which the work of a "Genera" has 

 for them. It happens often enough to naturahsts, and to all 

 learned men, to allow themselves to be led by their individual ap- 

 titudes, or by private circumstances, more than by considerations 

 of the general state of science. When De Candolle commenced 

 the Systema and the Prodromus, the time was badly chosen. 

 Travellers were every year bringing back between one and two 

 thousand new species. It was like a submergence of genera : and 

 families in proportion as the revision operated ; and, nevertheless, 

 is it not better that the work has been courageously ventured on and 

 continued ? In future, the authors of new " Genera " will have to 

 traverse in the series of families entire regions, in which they will find 

 little or nothing to correct or modify. Nevertheless, since that enter- 

 prise has smiled upon them, let us not blame them. One only 

 does that well which they like ; and a serious employment of the 

 time of capable botanists always produces good results. The first 

 volume of the new " Genera," which is just finished, is a proof of it. 

 The next in which the immense family of Composites will be com- 

 prised, will probably be of still greater importance, on account of 

 the numerous retouches and additions made by divers authors 

 since the Prodromus. 



At the first glance, the work has not that regular, we would say 

 even magisterial disposition which one admires in Endlicher's book. 

 The great divisions of the kingdom are not there exposed from 

 the beginning and co-ordinated with the rest. They are expressly 

 reserved. That is a consequence of a profound diff'erence in the 

 manner of proceeding. Endlicher had constructed his Genera 

 chiefly from books. Our authors draw up theirs chiefly from 

 plants. Endlicher, in spite of all his capacity, could never have 

 executed his work in four years, if he had attempted to verify all 

 the characters, and to innovate, by referring back to the direct 

 examination of species. Without doubt he had examined many 

 plants, or rather he had seen, and he has profited by his notes to 

 amend here and there ; but he has not indicated what he had him- 

 self verified, and, in general, one has the feeling in consulting him 

 that he has verified little, and that he shines chiefly by an exposition 

 as complete as lucid of the labours of his predecessors. Messrs 

 Bentham and Hooker, on the contrary, work upon the plants them- 

 selves. Their title bears : — " Genera Plantarum ad exemplaria 

 imprimis in Herbariis Kcwensibus servata definita." It is clear and 

 it is true. We know, thanks to the friendly relations by which we 



