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XXXVI. Notices respecting New Books. 



The English Flora, Vols. 1. and II. By Sir J. E. Smith, M.D. 

 F.R.S. President of the Linn. Soc. Sfc. fyc. fyc. 1824. 



T'HE public will accept with pleasure this portion of a work 

 ■*■ which has been long promised. These two volumes com- 

 prise about one half of the phaenogamous plants, and the author 

 purposes to proceed immediately with the remainder. The 

 preface gives a succinct and masterly outline of the nature of 

 a Flora, confined as it should be to botanical illustration and 

 description, with such remarks concerning the properties of 

 plants as may be new or important ; with philosophical views 

 arising from the nature of the subject, tending to the general 

 elucidation of botanical science. A great improvement upon 

 the author's Flora Britannica is introduced, by combining as 

 much as possible some account of the natural affinities of each 

 genus with the Linnaean character. Thus, not only is the in- 

 dividual species pointed out in the clearest way to the student 

 by means of the artificial system, but the natural relations to 

 other species and genera, and much of its history and physio- 

 logy, which constitute the philosophy of the subject. By the 

 plan here adopted, the repetition of the species twice over is 

 avoided. Although English botanists have been conspicuous 

 for their acute search into species, somewhat to the exclusion 

 q[' more general views, this work, with others of the learned 

 author, will give them a taste for the higher departments of the 

 study, and not leave them satisfied with an acquaintance solely 

 with the individual. 



If the Flora Germanica of Schrader, a small portion of which 

 has reached this country, be more minutely discriminative in 

 the descriptions, and be aided by some illustrative figures of 

 difficult species, the English Flora of Sir J. E. Smith surpasses 

 all others in its critical department. The descriptions are am- 

 ple for all purposes of distinction, and the diagnostic views 

 greatly assist the inquirer. There is an amenity and candour 

 about the whole work highly creditable to the feelings of the 

 author and to his subject, and he does but exemplify in his 

 own practice what he says is the tendency of all natural 

 science : — " to enlarge the understanding by a perpetual dis- 

 play of the power and wisdom of God." 



The language is accommodated, much beyond what we 



could have expected, to the merely English reader, who will 



not be deterred by the Latinity of the nomenclature, adopted 



by Dr. Hull in his "British Flora," and by some other au- 



E e 2 thors. 



