228 Analysis of Periodical Works on ^Zoology and Botany. 



to comprise " coloured fij^iu-es and descriptions of the Crypto- 

 ganiic Plants found in Scotland, and chiefly of such as belong 

 to the order Fungi,'' and is intended to serve as a continuation 

 o^ English Botany. 



To the British botanist we can scarcely think that a more 

 welcome publication could be offered. We have, in the Flora 

 Britannica and English Botany of the learned and estimable 

 Presidentof the Linnacan Society, a mine of knowledge and in- 

 formation in every department of our Flora, with the exception 

 of what relates to the Fungi. These have been in a measure 

 illustrated by the numerous figures of Mr. Sowerby. But in 

 that publication the nimiber of species is very limited, com- 

 paretl with what we now know, and these require to be thrown 

 into a proper arrangement. Persoon, DecandoUe, Neis von 

 Esenbeck, and above all the able Fries, have done much to- 

 wards a systematic distribution of this difficult tribe. It is left 

 for our countryman Mr. Greville (who unites to a classical 

 knowledge of his subject, a power of delineating the object of 

 his pursuit such as is rarely possessed by men of science,) to 

 publish the Fungi of our islands ; for we can hardly believe that 

 he will wholly confine himself to the productions of the north- 

 ern part of Great Britain ; and the labour of doing this could 

 not apparently have fallen into better hands. 



The Scottish Cryptogamia is to appear in monthly numbers 

 of 5 plates each. '^Tlie engravings are well executed, and the 

 whole got up very much in the same style as the Flora Exotica 

 of Dr. Hooker. Mr. Greville has given, we see, a full list of 

 synon3ans, and a translation both of the generic and specific 

 characters. The author has established several new orders out 

 of the original Fungi of Linnaeus and Jussieu, ol the propriety 

 of doing which we shall be better able to judge when the work 

 shall be further advanced. 



No. 1. contains Iderotium durum, (Persoon); Agaricus jioc- 

 cosus, (Curtis); Isaria microscopica, a curious new species, pa- 

 rasitical on the Trichia clavata, " extremely minute, scattered, 

 solitary, simple, club-shaped, very white, the minute fihmients 

 and sporules very indistinct ;" jEcidium Thalictri, a new spe- 

 cies, found by one of Dr. Hooker's students when upon an ex- 

 cursion to Ben Lomond, and thus defined, " growing on the 

 imder side of the leaf, somewhat clustered, clusters of a round- 

 ish form; peridia oblongo-cylindrical, bright orange, the mouth 

 paler and bursting irregularly ;" and Peziza ochracea, new spe- 

 cies, ofwhich the character stands thus: "minute, sessile, fleshy, 

 thick, yellowisli-brown, plane or subconvex, smooth beneath ; 

 hymenium (or fructifying surface) sprinkled with granular shi- 

 ning particles." 



No. 2. 



