Notices respecting New Books. 63 
distinctly characterized by words, and such as are only known 
by habit and growth. To raise them all to the same rank is, 
in many genera, to involve them all in the same obscurity. 
The old species, so well known to our ancestors, are in danger 
of being lost, to be superseded by others which are obscure 
and undefinable. Students are frightened from the study by 
the difficulty they find in detecting any species; and the science 
is left in the hands of an eclectic number, who can only trans- 
mit it to their descendants by uncertain tradition; and if the 
tendency should be to restrict it to the few, instead of throwing 
it open to the many, we may be assured our mode of pursuing 
it is erroneous. ‘This subject is important, and needs illustra- 
tion to some extent ; but we only hint at it here as introductory 
to our notice. 
Sir James Edward Smith in his English Flora has from ne- 
cessity adopted a great number of these recent obscure species, 
and which are not found in his Flora Britannica; not how- 
ever without regretting the multiplication, yet finding it impos- 
sible to reject them, in consequence of the high credit on which 
they rested. The third volume does not contain so many as 
the two previous *; and, with some exceptions as to genera, the 
species are pretty much as the author’s former works had left 
them. We will just notice the most prominent changes which 
have taken place. The Nuphar minima of Engl. Bot. is here 
very properly called pumila, a name which had been given by 
Hoffman previously to the publication of the figure in that work. 
‘The genus Tilia, which has been greatly confused, is revised 
thus: 7. Europea and parvifolia remain as before. T. grandi- 
Jfolia Ehrh. is adopted ; and the T. platyphyllos of Ventenat, and 
the T. ulmifolia semine hexagono of Dillenius, are quoted un- 
der it, while the 7. corallina of Rees’s Qyclopzedia, and Ray’s 
Red-twigged Lime, are considered as a variety of it. 7. parvi- 
folia appears to us to be the only species found undoubtedly 
wild, the rest having been probably introduced as ornaments 
to our pleasure-grounds. The stations in Stoken Church 
Woods in Oxfordshire, it appears, cannot be relied on as wild, 
as many of the species now found there have the appearance 
of having been planted. Merrett’s station for 7. grandifolia 
in Surrey is in the same predicament: it is not found there 
in anatural wood. Aconitum Napellus is now first introduced 
as English; but it should, we apprehend, with the ‘ Lark- 
spur,” have been marked with an asterisk, to indicate its 
doubtful claim to be indigenous. Under Caltha palustris is 
introduced a var. 8, which DeCandolle has noticed, and which 
* The first and second volumes were noticed by us in vol. Ixiii. pp. 219 
and 284, 
Miller 
