BOTANICAL LITERATURE. 95 



pays not a whit more deference to the opinions of the great 



himinaries of botany across the sea. The new genera of 

 Borckhausen, Moench, Eobert Brown, De Candolle and Eichar J 



find no favor in his eyes. He gives them each a little nod of 

 recognition " as subgenera," and that is all. But, small though 

 his charity be for the propounders of new genera, Dr. Bigelow 

 must needs have a new one of his own making in his Florula 

 Bostoniensis. And what a genus ! PoieniilJa argufa, Pursh, 

 as " Bootia sijlvcstris,'^ and the new name not spelled conform- 

 ably to that of the botanist, Dr. Boott, who is complimented. 



In the considerable number of new species proposed, our 

 author was more fortunate ; and his work will always be 

 referred to as the bibliographical source of such admirable 

 species as Slellaria horcalis, Adcca alha, Lactnca inicgri- 

 folia, MTjriophylhim icncUum and Jimcus miUiarls ; as also 

 for the first referring of Lathy riis mariiimus to its proper 

 genus. 



But, viewed in its several aspects as a volume, it on the 

 whole surpasses, as we said at first, every other book of 

 descriptive botany which New England has yet given us. 

 There is no appearance of cheapness about it. The paper is 

 good and durable ; the type respectably large and pleasingly 

 and usefully varied. The scholar and the man of taste— not 

 alone the close and hard economy of the book-seller— had a 

 word to say about the execution of it. While the author's 

 own opinion of generic and specific limitations are given, 

 those of other men are not excluded ; in other words, there 

 is some synonymy. And while for the convenience of those 

 who wish an easy way of determining species, the special 

 characters of them are given apart from the more detailed 

 description of the whole plant, the latter most important yet 

 most expensive part of the business— expensive^ both as 

 involving the heaviest tax on the time and energies of the 

 author, as well as upon the finances of the publisher— is not 

 omitted ; so that on the whole, we have a book for amateurs 

 and beginners, and at the same time one worthy of the 

 botanist and the scholar. For three quarters of a century 



