FLOE^ EUROPiE^ FRAGMENTUM. 



91 



Flora', EuropcBCB Fragmentum. Auctore Augusto Grisebach 



edidit Augustus Kanitz. London : Dulau and Co. 



In a notice of Nyman's invaluable ' Conspectus Florae Euro- 

 pse*,' which appeared in these pages,* regret was expressed that 

 the author had not found it possible to give a short diagnosis of 

 genera species, thus supplying the urgent want of a general 

 European Flora. In the pamphlet of fifty-eight pages now before 

 UB, we find that this want had suggested itself to the late Dr. 

 Grisebach, and that he had set himself to work to supply it, when 

 death ended his labours in 1879. Fragment as it is, this specimen 

 cannot fail to be of interest to the European botanist. It shows 

 that the task of compiling a general European Flora is not so 

 great as to be impracticable ; and that the space which this must 

 occupy is not as large as might be supposed. Nyman devotes 

 nearly twenty-two pages to the RanunculacecE ; in Grisebach's 

 fragment they occupy nearly twenty- seven pages ; but the space 

 which the latter has devoted to his diagnoses is assigned by Nyman 

 to the not less useful synonymy of the European species. The 

 distribution of each species is given in fuller detail by Nyman ; 

 Grisebach condenses this, but adds an indication of the extra- 

 European range of the plants, which Nyman omits ; the references 

 to published sets, which form so useful a feature in Nyman, find 

 no place in Grisebach's fragment. Had the latter author, there- 

 fore, been spared to complete his work, it would not have in any 

 way supplanted Nyman ; but, with the two combined, we should 

 have had in a compendious form all that the general student would 

 require for obtaining a good general knowledge of the European Flora. 



The estimate of species adopted by the two authors is less 

 different than might have been expected. It may be of interest to 

 contrast the two views of the species of RanunculacecB ; it will be 

 seen that the principal difference is in the genus Batrachium, where 

 there is ample room for diversity of opinion as to the limits of 

 species : — 



* Journ. But., 1879, p. b49. 



