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Dr. Hooker on American Botany. QT7 
Plants, and a Catalogue of its Sie oer to the year 1817, by 
Thomas Nuttall,” in 2 vols. 12mo. printed at Philadel shia. 
Mr. Nuttall is an Englishman y birth, and a native of York- 
shire; but he visited North America at an early age, and is 
now domiciliated in that country. His love of botany and 
mineralogy is exceedingly great, and a personal pip ie vee! 
which his late visit to this country has enabled us 
pleasure of forming. has only served to increase he esteem 
and respect which his writings had already taught us to enter- 
tain towards him. For many years previous to the publica~ 
tion of his Flora, the author eis engaged in visiting very ex- a: 
tensively the territories of the United States, particularly the 
southern and western ones. ‘ For nearly ten years,” he says 
in his preface to his Journal of Travels into the Arkansas 
territory, ‘1 have travelled throughout America, principally 
with a view to becoming acquainted with some favourite 
branches of natural history. I have bad no other end in view 
but personal gratification; and in this I have not been de- 
ceived; for innocent amusement can never leave room for 
regret. ‘To converse, as it were with hature, to admire the 
wisdom and beauty of creation, has ever been, and | hop 
ever will be, to me a favourite pursuit ; and to communicate 
to others a portion of the same amusement and gratification 
has been tbe only object of my botanical publications.” 
The “ Genera of North American Planis” is entirely in 
English and it appears that it was the design of the writer to 
have arranged it according to the natural orders. But out o 
py ne ose to public opinion; in a country where the artificial 
system of Linnzus had almost exclusively been studied, Mr. 
Nuttall adopted that method. He has, however, made a great 
many valuable remarks upon the natural orders, following 
several of the genera, and has recommen he of 
some new ones. He has well defined the characters of the 
order Monotropee, to which he has properly referred the 
highly curious Pterospora. As, however, the well-known 
genus Pyrola belongs unquestionably to the same family, the 
term Pyrolee might perhaps have been considered as more 
appropriate. The characters of the genera (which he here 
extends to 807, exclusive of any cryptogamia,) have, as may 
be inferred from the title, occupied a greater share of attention 
from Mr. Nuttall. He has added to the essential characters, 
those taken from the habit of the plant, and he has noticed 
their geographical distribution. In the enumeration of species, 
