987 



Notice of a ' Handbook of Field Botany, comprising the Flowering 

 Plants and Ferns indigenous to the British Isles. By AVm. 

 E. Steele, A.B,, M.B., Trinity College, Dublin, Licentiate of 

 the King's and Queen's College of Physicians ; Corresponding 

 Member of the Botanical Society of London ; Lecturer on Bo- 

 tany in the Richmond Hospital School of Medicine and Sur- 

 gery.' Dublin: M'Glashan, 1847. 



We can scarcely imagine that the most remote probability of suc- 

 cess attends the publication of a descriptive list of British plants in 

 opposition to the established works of Hooker and Babington ; but 

 we have no wish on this account to prejudice the work before us, and 

 therefore request the reader's attention to the author's own introduc- 

 tion. 



" In preparing the following pages for publication, I have been de- 

 sirous to supply the student with a guide to the floral productions of 

 the British Isles, which, according to the principles of the natural 

 system, should embrace all that might be found necessary to enable 

 him to identify species with ease and certainty. 



" The present advanced and advancing state of botanical science in 

 these countries renders it unnecessary for me to defend the adoption 

 of the system of natural orders, as the basis of a work like the present, 

 in preference to that of Linnaeus ; the public voice has now decided 

 this question ; so that the advocate for the Linnsean system, in place 

 of being an eifective assailant, is now compelled to act on the defence. 



" The very simple and superficial nature of the inquiries necessary 

 to be instituted in assigning to any plant its class and order in the 

 system of the great Swede, is the chief, if not the only, reason that 

 can be urged to justify the continued use of that arrangement. It 

 must be borne in mind, however, that the investigation does not end 

 with this ; for in order to determine the genus of which the plant is a 

 species in the heterogeneous assemblage thus brought together, other 

 and frequently most minute points of structure must be inquired into, 

 surrounding this phase of the investigation with considerable diflicul- 

 ties. In the natural system these difficulties are merely transferred 

 to the determination of the natural order ; but this once accomplished, 

 that of the genus is comparatively simple. So far, then, it is appa- 

 rent that the difficulties in the application of either system, to the 

 determination of genera, are nearly balanced. If, however, we can 

 simplify the investigation by which we can assign a plant to its natu- 

 ral order, then the onlv nlea against the condemnation of that of 



