172 Miscellanies. 
volve; but since it cannot be expected from that quarter, we are glad 
it has been undertaken, and we may almost say completed, by so 
learned and careful a botanist as Dr. Endlicher. The only fault we 
have to notice is, that there is no mode of distinguishing directly the 
generic. characters which are compiled altogether from preceding 
authors, from those drawn from the plants themselves. An author 
can only be considered responsible for the latter; yet unless there 
be some means of distinguishing those which have been verified from 
the remainder, he becomes somewhat implicated in the mistakes of 
his predecessors. Dr. Endlicher being scarcely less distinguished as 
a classical scholar than as_a botanist, this work is a perfect model of 
classical style. 
Simultaneously with this work, which it is in part intended to illus- 
trate, the author is publishing an Iconographia Generum Plantarum. 
It appears in quarto parts, with about twelve uncolored plates in each, 
executed in a very superior manner, with full analyses, which leave 
nothing to be desired in this respect. Seven or eight parts are already 
published. It is the cheapest illustrated work of the kind with which 
we are acquainted, and at the same time one of the very best. 
3. Hooker, Flora Boreali-Americana, or the Botany of the North- 
ern parts of British America, &c., part XI, 1839. (London.)—The 
eleventh part of this work has just reached us; and as the twelfth 
and concluding portion may soon be expected, we hope to give in the 
following number of this Journal a more particular notice of Sir Wm. 
’s most important and extensive labors in North American 
botany. For the present, we may merely state that the eleventh fasci- 
culus comprises the Orchideous, and the Irideous and Cy peraceous 
plants, and a portion of the Grasses. Beautiful figures are given of 
Platanthera obtusata, P. orbiculata, and P. rotundifolia; also of @ 
true Epipactis! from Oregon, (and we believe there is another in 
Texas,) of Spiranthes gracilis, S. decipiens, (a new species with 
just the habit of Goodyera pubescens,) Listera convallarioides, (the 
true one,) Cypripedium passerinum, and of twelve mostly new Ca- 
rices. The account of the genus Carex is by Dr. Boott, who enu- 
tmerates one hundred and fifty-eight species as natives of British Amer- 
ica, (including Oregon, quite to the border of ess of which 
nineteen are described as new. 
= Hooker and Arhoté the Botany of Capt. Beechey’s Voyag es Fee 
: Part Ix; — (London.)—This work has extended to four hundred 
y-two quarto pages, and another fasciculus will perhaps com- 
peed tghot this we are uncertain. The number of plates 
