56 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



short, I do not doubt that the work would be very useful (and I 

 can speak from experience), but its place cannot be supplied by a 

 " Genera." Its extent justifies Messrs Bentham and Hooker for the 

 greater part of the retrenchments which they have imposed upon 

 themselves in the citation of their synonyms. 



They rectify in passing many citations badly made, which lead 

 into error. No one would believe, for instance, how much the 

 opinions of De Candolle, given out in the Systema and the Pro- 

 dromus, are erroneously represented by many subsequent botanists. 

 M. Schnizlein (Iconogr. Famil. Nat.) mentions the Gompheaceoe, 

 D.C., Andromadacese, D.C., and other names which do not 

 exist in the works of De Candolle at least under that form, and as 

 names of families. Ecklon and Zeyher (Enum. Plant. Afr. Austr., 

 p. 8) attribute to my father genera named Carponema, Leptormus, 

 Ormiscus, which he has not made, and which he did not want to 

 make, for he had proposed these groups as sections of the genus 

 Heliophila (Syst. ii., p. 679). Messrs Bentham and Hooker, who 

 of new consider them as sections, re-establish the truth in citing 

 these names as the names of sections of De Candolle, and of 

 genera of Ecklon and Zeyher. Carried on over the whole extent 

 of the vegetable kingdom, such rectifications are not without 

 importance. 



Messrs Bentham and Hooker do not take up everything ab ovo. 

 They suppose botanists to be provided with the most important 

 works which have preceded them. They refer back to several of 

 these works, and even to monographs of families. What they give 

 is a resume', or a complement, of previous labours. The newest 

 part of their work is disclosed by the use that is made of it. It 

 consists in an infinity of information upon genera badly known or 

 badly described, of which the Herbaria of Kew contain authentic 

 specimens, or on which our authors have been able to obtain 

 information Avhich was not to be found elsewhere. These details 

 are extremely scattered, but each is put in its place, and the tables 

 refer to them. 



Messrs Bentham and Hooker propose few new genera. They 

 destroy many old ones. That last tendency is made a matter of 

 reproach to them, but it appears to us to flow naturally from the 

 present state of things, and from the quantity of publications lightly 

 made since the time of Linnaeus, and even within the last few years. 

 How many genera have there not been proposed on insignificant 

 characters, or on characters common to a whole family, or on some 



