NEW PUBLICATIONS. 157 
editorship of the scientific portion of the new series has fallen into the 
hands of Mr. Syme. He has been so placed that he has had excellent 
opportunities of studying the plants of different parts of Britain, both 
ina living and dried state. He knows well the recent. Continental 
Floras, not only Koch, and Fries, and Grenier and Godron, but also 
- Jordan and Boreau, and the beautiful illustrated volumes of Reichen- 
bach. He has studied with care the plants of continental Europe of 
which he has had dried specimens at command ; and he has duly read 
the ‘Cybele Britannica,’ and pays it the only kind of compliment which 
is really worth anything, by habitually using it. | 
The principal novelty of the book is the adoption, in classify ing 
forms of plants according to their degree of distinctiveness, of an in- 
termediate stepping-stone between the variety and the species of full 
rank, and it is a plan which has several manifest advantages. The 
fault of Mr. Bentham’s method of treating the British flora is, that by 
ignoring all forms and combinations of forms which he himself cannot 
readily define and characterize, he sacrifices real truth of nature for the 
sake of mere artificial symmetry of classification, and of mere conveni- 
ence of conventional expression. The fault of Messieurs Jordan and 
Boreau's plan is, that they place combinations of extremely unequal 
value upon an equality with one another, and thus they also violate 
the real truth of nature. It seems to us that the best work which 
these latter authors have done is one that they have done unconsciously 
their labours have helped us very much to understand the real na- 
ture of what we call species, their books having especially tended 
to force into prominence the amount of difference that there is between 
* species ” as differently treated, a point which Mr. Watson had in- 
sisted upon so strongly, and elucidated so clearly in the fourth volume 
of the ‘Cybele.’ Mr. Syme, as has been explained already, adopts three 
grades of classification subordinate to genus, which he calls variety, 
subspecies, and species ; his variety being somewhat more than equal 
to the “ species” of the French analysts, his subspecies being nearly 
equal to the “ species” of Babington's * Manual,’ and his species of full 
rank being considerably less than equal to a “ species" of Bentham s 
* Handbook; and the result, as practically expressed in these two 
volumes is, we think, a more real and fuller expression of the truth of 
nature in this matter than has been attained by any other author. 
It is hardly needful, after what has been already said, to adduce any 
