382 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
thing upon which a more perfect structure will be hereafter built.” 
Hitherto, and even still, some of the most useful vegetable products 
are unknown to us, and Mr. Bentham well observes in his “ Desiderata,” 
“the practical, economical, and commercial Botany of West Tropical 
Africa is less understood, perhaps, than any other branch. Products of the 
greatest value have been thence exported during a long course of years, 
without our being able to form the smallest idea of the plants which sup- 
ply them. Every collector has sent home a different leaf as that of the 
* African Teak, or ‘African Oak.’ The learned researches of Dr. Pereira 
have not yet, for want of tbe requisite data, solved the doubts as to which 
one or more species of Amomum furnish the hot, acrid seeds now 
imported as Guinea grains. Similar doubts hang over the species or 
varieties of Habzelia, whose seeds were also known as Guinea grains, 
or Ethiopian pepper, wg of. Cubeba, supplying, according to Thonning, 
the Ashantee pepper." 
That this work will pave the way for obtaining the requisite informa- 
tion on these and other important subjects connected with this highly 
interesting part of the globe we can entertain no doubt; and copies, 
we know, have been already sent out to some of the many intelligent 
natives of Africa, who have displayed a great desire for useful infor- 
mation. 
Medical and Economical Botany; by Joun Linney, Ph.D., F.R.S., &c., 
with numerous illustrations. London, 1849. 
This important volume is, a note tells us, * the concluding por- 
tion of the ‘Elements of Botany,’ the first two parts comprising 
Structural and Physiological Botany, and a Glossary of Technical 
Terms, being published in one octavo volume.” And a welcome 
volume this assuredly is to every one who takes an interest in the 
uses to which vegetable substances are applied, in other words, the 
importance of the vegetable kingdom to mankind, particularly in a 
medical and economical point of view. It is not, however, now 
intended to be by any means complete as such. It seems rather destined 
to aid a botanical teacher or lecturer in his arduous duties, “ The prin- 
cipal part of those [plants]," Dr.Lindley observes in the preface, “ which 
can be brought by teachers in Europe under the notice of students, or 
which, from their great importance, deserve to be among the earliest 
