989 



duration, time of flowering, colour, in which of the three kingdoms 

 alone the plant has been discovered, if it have not been found in all, 

 or if it be exclusively a native of the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, &c., as 

 indicated by the letter C. ; and finally, by the last figure on the right 

 hand, whether it be a plant of rare or frequent occurrence." — Intro- 

 duction, iii. 



The analytical method of determining the station and name of an 

 unknown plant, originated, as our readers are probably aware, with the 

 great French naturalist, Lamarck ; and with various modifications has 

 since been successfully employed by De Candolle, Hooker, Lindley, 

 and other botanists both in this country and on the continent. It has 

 especially been applied to British plants by Dr. Lindley* and by Mr. 

 Ralfs.f Thus it is evident that the idea of the analytical method did 

 not originate with our author, who does not indeed lay claim to it, 

 neither does he acknowledge the labours of predecessors in this par- 

 ticular mode of investigation. Analytical tables of this description, if 

 properly prepared and carefully used, are of the greatest use even to 

 the practised botanist; on the other hand, as Dr. Lindley has well 

 observed, this method "is of all the very worst if used injudiciously:" 

 for " one false step, either on the part of the author who frames it, or 

 on that of the reader, instantly leads astray, and induces errors of the 

 most serious kind." The truth of these remarks we have frequently 

 had occasion to notice, while superintending the studies of others. 



Several cases of oversight occur in Mr. Steele's analytical table of 

 orders, which would not a little puzzle the tyro : among others may 

 be mentioned his calling the Plantagineap " Water plants," and Halo- 

 rageae " Land plants." Now, so far as the British Flora is concerned, 

 the species of Halorageous genera (Myriophyllura and Hippuris) are 

 eminently water plants ; and Littorella, the only British genus of the 

 PlantaginaCeae which can be said to contain water plants, does so acci- 

 dentally rather than normally, since its only species, though located 

 on the margins of pools and lakes, and in other localities liable to be 

 inundated, where it will grow luxuriantly even when covered with 

 water, yet it never flowers until the retiring of the water has left it ex- 

 posed to the influence of the atmosphere. 



Then again with regard to the Dioscoriacese and the Trilliacese, the 

 calyx of the former is said to be " petaloid," and the petals of the 

 latter " brightly coloured ; " a tyro would scarcely refer Tamus, with 

 its inconspicuous herbaceous perianth, to the former, nor Paris, with 



* Synopsis of the British Flora. f Analysis of the British Flora. 



Vol. II. 6 h 



