IMPORTANT WORKS. 6 



t)ver, uo idea of methodical arrangeinent, his work is a perfect 

 chaos. 



" Much has been done, liowever, for the elucidation of the 

 order in local floras. . . . About the close of the last century, 

 several continental botanists proposed new genera for anomalous 

 European grasses . . . that were overh)oked by Beauvois, Persooii. 

 AYilldenow, and other general systematists. Several of the same 

 .genera have since been re-establislied, but under other names which 

 have now been so long and so universally adopted that they must 

 be considered as having acquired a right of prescription to overrule 

 the strict laws of priority. It would indeed be mere pedantry, 

 highly inconvenient to botanists, and so far detrimental to science, 

 now to substitute Blumenhachia for Sorglinm, Fibichia for Cynodon, 

 Santia for Polypogon, or Singlinyia for Triodia. 



'' Since the days of Kunth, Trinius, and JS'ees, the most im- 

 j)ortant local revisions of Graminese are : Andersson's ' Graminea^ 

 Scandinavise,' Parlatore's first volume of his ' Flora Italiana,' 

 •Cosson and Durieu's Glumaceous volume of the great unfinished 



* Flore d'Algerie,' DoelFs Graminea? for tlie great Brazilian Flora 

 founded by Martins, and Fournier's Graminefe for the Mexican 

 Flora he has undertaken; partial revisions by Grisebach in his 



* Spicilegium Florae Eumelicge et Bithynicee,' in the fourth volume 

 ■of 'Flora Rossica,' and by Emile Desvaux in Claude Gray's 



* Chilian Flora,' supplemented by new genera and species pub- 

 lished by Philippi in various papers on Cliilian plants. Andersson 

 Avas a most acute observer, but, for want of access to an extensive 

 library, his synonyms are often very inaccurate. Palatore's mono- 

 graph of Italian grasses is thoroughly to be relied upon when the 

 result of his own observations, but old errors have sometimes been 

 copied from others. Cosson and Durieu's ' Monograph of Algerian 

 Grasses' is a most valuable treatise. Grisebach has also done 

 much for the elucidation of oriental Graminea?. In Doell's work 

 I have been disappointed, as he exhibits a general carelessness in 

 redaction. Advance sheets of Eugene Fournier's ' Enumeration 

 of Mexican Gramineae' have been published. His genus Lesourdia 

 had already been published for a southern species by Philipi)i 



