i74 Miscellanies. 
work on botany. Had a mere introduction to the elements of the 
science alone been needed, the desideratum might easily have been 
supplied. “But I soon found,” says Mr. Harvey, ‘‘on cross-ques- 
tioning, that something very different was required. One lady told 
me that she knew already what ‘calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils, 
and all that? meant; and another had penctrated the mystery of Mo- 
nandria, Diandria, &c., and did not want to be told that over again; 
what they desired, was a book in which they could discover the names 
of every plant that struck their fancy in rambling through the fields; 
in short, a Flora Capensis. Were I found myself completely at fault, 
for there seemed little use in recommending the Flora of Thunberg, 
or the more ancient writings of Burmann; for even could they be 
procured, which would not be without much difficulty, they would 
have proved perfectly useless to my lady friends, who, not being 
blue-stockings, could have deriv an little instruction from the crabbed 
Latin in which they are written.” Mr. Harvey then conceived the 
idea of writing a Flora Capensis; but it at once occurring, that such 
a work must consume a long series of years in preparation, he deci- 
ded upon rendering that more prompt, though less complete assistance, 
which a work like the present is calculated to afford. The Genera 
of South African plants, is the result of this determination ; for which 
the author deserves the thanks, not only of the lady friends, whose 
benefit he had chiefly in view, but of all the cultivators of botanical 
science. Although much more time would be required for its prepa- 
ration, the work would have been more valuable had Mr. Harvey 
placed still less dependence on preceding authors, and drawn his 
characters in every practicable instance, from the plants themselves; 
but only those who are accustomed to prepare their works in this 
manner, are aware of the vast amount of labor itinvolves. The gen- 
eral plan of the work, as the author informs us, is taken from Beck’s 
Botany of the Northern and Middle States of North America, and 
Nuttall’s Genera of North American Plants; in the arrangement an 
characters of the orders, Dr. Arnott has chiefly been followed. The 
number of genera described is one thousand and eighty-six, distributed 
under one hundred and thirty-five orders. Many South African gene- 
ra have been published in still more recent general works or particu- 
lar memoirs, or in those which had not reached the Cape in time to 
be employed by Mr. Harvey, so that the number of Cape genera ae 
de safely estimated at one thousand two hundred. 
x Se Pi resl, Tentamen Pteridographie, seu Genera Filicacearum 
pre ‘m juzta venarum decursum et distributionem. expositd 
4a - Ppp- 290, 8vo., with 12 quarto lithographic plates.)— 
