21 S NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
plan of keeping up the old series was of some little convenience, though 
in the last edition its advantages were at best doubtful ; but now that 
the order of the species has been in many cases disturbed, and the list 
altogether much modified, it is difficult to imagine what object is 
served by keeping up this numeration of twenty-three years' standing. 
All the inconveniences of the list of 1857 remain, with the additional 
awkwardness of a new representative number for those plants whose 
position has been altered. 
In addition to this, the retention of these numbers has, we fear, been 
of harm in another way, for they have been made of primary importance. 
We are informed that the list is " adapted to recent changes" only "in 
so far as adherence to the numbers would allow," and this principle is 
carried out only too well. In the Catalogue are included 1471 " spe- 
cies," 193 "intermediate," and 455 "varieties," which have been so 
manipulated as to be compressed into the series of numbers from 1 to 
1428. Of course, on such a principle inequalities and inconsistencies 
appear, and a statement is rendered necessary to the effect that the 
plants included in either of the three grades are none of them " co- 
equal among themselves." 
It is dangerous to venture to generalize after the last-quoted state- 
ment, but it appears that there is visible in this edition a tendency to 
/ reduce the aggregate " species." Notwithstanding the additions to the 
British Flora since 1857, there are but 1471 full species in the edition 
of the present year against 1496 in that of the former date; besides 
this, the truly indigenous Flora is still further reduced in this edition, 
124 species being marked as probably introduced, whilst oidy 115 were 
so distinguished in the Catalogue of 1857. 
The " excluded species" are given in two separate lists instead of 
three as in the last edition. The first list contains the " aliens, casuals, 
and waifs of cultivation," and 116 plants of very unequal degrees of 
naturalization are included in it. The examples of Silene Italica, 
Aremonia agrimonioi/les, Crucianella stylosa, Datura Stramonium, Eu- 
phorbia saUcifolia, and Castanea vesca, will illustrate this inequality. 
The second list comprises " ambiguities, errors, impositions, and extinc- 
tions," and is a motley group of plants, 154 in number. Such plants 
as Delphinium Conaolida, Glaucium phceniceum, and Ammi majus, do 
not seem to come well under either of the above four heads, and ought 
rather to be in the first list. 
