636 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
in the author's possession has undergone a thorough ex- 
amination and revision. Many new genera are given, par- 
ticularly of Mr. Nuttall’s se Zens discoveries. Liatris con- 
tains 29 species; Eupatorium, 24; Aster, 131, yet the 
authors unite many supposed species into one: Erigeron, 40; 
Solidago, 94; Silphium, 11; Rudbeckia, 15; Helianthus, 37 ; 
Coreopsis, 26. But the great merit of the publication con- 
sists in the care and pains that have been bestowed in charac- 
terizing the genera and species from actual investigation ; and 
in these respects, perhaps, few works can be compared with it. 
It will be gratifying to the scientific world to know that 
Dr. Asa Gray, the talented coadjutor of Dr. Torrey in the 
* Flora of North America,” just mentioned, has been recently 
appointed to the chair of Botany at Harvard University, 
formerly occupied by Mr. Nuttall; and a more competent 
successor to so accomplished a Botanist could not anywhere 
have been selected. Already Dr. Gray has most zealously 
entered upon his important duties, and has given proof of 
his fitness for the office he has undertaken, by an admirable 
introductory work, which he has published under the title of 
* The Botanical Text-Book for Colleges, Schools, and Private 
Students ; comprising—Part I. an Introduction to Structural 
and Physiological Botany : and Part II. The Principles of Sys- 
tematic Botany ; with an Account of the Chief Natural Fami- 
lies of the Vegetable Kingdom, and Notices of the Principal 
Officinal and otherwise Useful Plants; with numerous wood 
engravings.” 
There is an immense mass of useful information here intro- 
duced into a 12mo. volume, of little more than 400 pages, 
most perspicuously detailed, and rendered still more intelli- 
gible to the student, by the well executed figures, which are 
a. worked in with the type. We are much mis- 
en if this do not become a popular book in our own 
country (where Wiley and Putnam, Stationers’-court, Lon- 
don, are the publishers), as well as in the United States. 
