847 



purely intellectual or scientific, is the chief defect of the Manual ; and 

 although too evident in some particular instances, we would still not 

 be understood to imply that it pervades the work generally and as a 

 whole. If called upon to do so, we will give examples in illustration 

 of the alleged defect. Unless so called upon, we shall avoid a course 

 which would compel us to name the botanists, towards whom, as ap- 

 pears to ourselves, an undue subserviency has been evinced, or the 

 opposite conduct exhibited. 



Having premised these observations on the general merits and 

 character of a book which may be considered a publication of much 

 importance to the British botanist, we shall now take a run through 

 its pages, in order to select therefrom some of the more novel items 

 which may appear most likely to interest readers of the ' Phytologist,' 

 or which may offer matter for comment. 



Under the head of Thalictrum minus we find a suggestion that T. 

 flexuosum {Reich.) is likely to prove a native of Britain ; also, that 

 the plant on the rocks, near Twll du, in Caernarvonshire, hitherto re- 

 ported under the name of T. minus, is probably T. Kochii (Fries). 

 Fries gives long descriptions of all three in his recent work, ' Summa 

 Vegetabilium Scandinavia; ;' from which it appears that T. minus has 

 eight-ribbed carpels, while those of the other two alleged species are 

 ten-ribbed ; T. Kochii having its stem hollow, straight, smooth, na- 

 ked ; T. flexuosum having the stem solid, striated, leafy at the base ; 

 the stems of T. minus being solid, flexuose, striated, and leafless at 

 the base. 



Under the head of R. aquatilis the author intimates that probably 

 two species (exclusive of circinatus and fluitans) are comprehended 

 under that name. The one, Batrachium heterophyllum (Fries), is to 

 be distinguished by its leaves having dentate or incised lobes, and its 

 flowers growing from the axils either of the submersed or the floating 

 leaves. The other, B. peltatum (Fries), is to be known by the cor- 

 date or truncate base and crenate lobes of its subpeltate, floating 

 leaves, with flowers from the axils of those floating leaves only. 

 Thus far our author appears to have taken the distinctions from 

 Fries ; but he farther says, " Often the floating leaves are wanting in 

 the former ; never in fertile plants of the latter." It is not easy to 

 see how the floating leaves could be wanting in fertile (that is, in 

 jlowering) plants of a species, whose flowers are produced from the 

 axils of those leaves only ! We before remarked that the author of 

 the Manual had no great tendency to imagine or to reason. If he 

 will again read the remarks of Fries, he may see that the short sen- 



