Mertens and Koch's Deutschland's Flora. 359 



is also an excellent botanist, has the charge of the botanic garden of Bonne, 

 and is preparing a " Flora Bonnensis et Coloniensis." 



Leipzig has had a worthy successor to the great Hedwig, in Dr 

 Sckwaegrichen, the present professor of natural history there, and who 

 is still labouring very successfully to increase our knowledge of the Mosses- 

 He adheres rigorously to the system established by his predecessor. 



Dr Schultes, professor at Landshruth, in conjunction with the late Dr 

 Homer of Zurich, commenced a " Systema Vegetabilium," with very full 

 descriptions and synonyms, and which would have proved highly use- 

 ful to the botanical student, had it been carried on to its completion : but 

 the death of Romer has probably put a stop to the publication, which has 

 yet reached, in five thick volumes 8vo, no further than to the end of the 

 class Pentandria. If this work is too full and too minute in its descriptions 

 and synonyms for general use, we think that Sprengel of Halle, in his 

 new edition of the Species Plantar urn, has fallen into the opposite ex- 

 treme; for here we have a work so entirely confined to mere generic and 

 specific characters, and those extremely short, that we have not even a 

 reference to a single figure to help us in our investigation, nor to any book 

 where we may find the plant described. Every one knows, that, in the 

 present state of the science, it is utterly impossible to ascertain many species 

 of plants, especially in the extensive genera, such as Erica, Solanum, 

 Convolvulus, Campanula, and a hundred others, by a simple differential cha- 

 racter of two, or at most, perhaps, three lines in length. Reference at 

 least should be given to some full description to aid us upon such an oc- 

 casion, and upon no account should the synonyms of the first author be 

 omitted. Here we have only the two or three first letters of the author's 

 name, such as Br. Sm. &c. but in which work of these writers the plant 

 is noticed, we are left in ignorance. Persoon's " Synopsis Plantar um" 

 we consider a model for such a book, and a very little more space and no 

 more labour, would have been required to have accomplished this desirable 

 object. With these exceptions we are anxious to give our highest praise 

 to this useful work. Here is brought together all that has been described 

 by other authors, and many new plants are introduced which have come 

 to our author's knowledge : and he seems, in a very great variety of in- 

 stances which have fallen under our observation, to have judiciously re- 

 duced a considerable number of doubtful species, and referred them to 

 their proper places. * 



Berlin must now claim a little of our attention, for it was the residence 

 of Willdenow, over whom the mantle of Linnasus seems to have been 

 thrown, and who was destined to accomplish, what no one else has been 

 able to do, the publishing a " Species Planlarum,'' arranged according to 

 the method of the illustrious Swede : so that until the completion of Ho- 

 mer and Schultes' or of Sprengel's work, or of De Candollcs Systema, 

 IVilldenow's System will still be the principal book of reference for all 

 botanists. Other great names, too, are intimately connected with the 



" This Systema has extended as far as the end of the class Tctradynamia, and to 

 tu'o thick and very closely-printed octavo volumes. 



