220 
NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
Synopsis Filicum. By the late Sir WILLIAM J. HOOKER, K.H., ete. 
and J. G. Baxer, F.L.S. 8vo. London: Hardwicke. 
This volume being a synopsis of the late Sir William Hooker's 
great work, ‘Species Filicum,’ will be welcome to every lover and 
student of Ferns ; if it had been permitted to him, to accomplish him- 
self, what has ae so well done by the present author, we should say 
that his performance would stand almost alone in botanical literature, 
and that Sir William would have left us a monument of labour and 
learning such as few other men could boast of. As it is, we have here 
the result of nearly thirty years’ untired labour compressed in about 
five hundred pages, with some useful plates indicating the main fea- 
tures of all the genera, and an enumeration and brief description of 
all clearly recorded species of Ferns, together with an excellent index, 
greatly facilitating references. 
ilst Hooker carried out his ‘Species Filicum’ his own views 
naturally became liable to change, and hence some alterations are to 
be noticed in this Synopsis. What Hooker called tribes are now styled 
suborders, and what he designated as suborders are named tribes. 
Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes have been separated from Dicksoniee, 
and constitute a separate tribe; hence, instead of twelve tribes (formerly 
suborders) the Polypodiaceous or second suborder has been divided into 
thirteen tribes. These have been reduced from sixty-six to sixty-one 
genera. All doubtful species have been omitted, and some new but 
well-established species have been admitted, the whole (including some 
additions, of which presently) now amounting to 2235 against 2380 
in the ‘Species Filicum.’ Lomaria, formerly considered to belong to 
Blechnee, has been ranged under Pteridee, to which alteration Hooker 
seemed already inclined, though he left the customary arrangement 
undisturbed.* Mr. Baker has also fulfilled the promise of Hooker 
by adding the following suborders, the enumeration of which will be 
welcome to every labourer in this field of inquiry, viz. 
* It is unnecessary here di minor cases of transposition from 
one subdivision to Aene ey are a o means as numerous as amongst so 
many subjects and diversities of opinion might have been expected, and form 
an additional testimony of Sir William Hooker’s great care and sagacity dis- 
played in the original work 
