1051 



Notice of ' Tlie London Catalogue of British Plants? Second 

 Edition. Pamplin, London, 1848. 



Notwithstanding its date, it seems desirable to acquaint Botanists 

 with the fact that the second edition of this Catalogue is already pub- 

 lished. The usefulness of this work for its immediate object has been 

 abundantly proved. Had the Botanical Society of London continued 

 to employ the Edinburgh Catalogue, which, notwithstanding the evi- 

 dent pains taken to obtain a correct nomenclature, is most confusedly 

 printed and most clumsily planned, it must have come to a stand still 

 instead of so greatly outstripping the Edinburgh Society as it has done 

 notwithstanding the various superior advantages which the latter cer- 

 tainly enjoyed. We can scarcely suppose our readers unacquainted 

 with the first edition of the London Catalogue, and have therefore 

 only to notice what may be termed the differences between the two : 

 these may be ranged under the four following heads : — 



First. All newly-discovered species up to the autumn of 1847 

 have been added in their respective places. 



Secondly. The list of excluded species has been gi-eatly increased, 

 being now nearly one hundred and fifty with dubious claims : all these 

 have either been found occasionally or recorded as British species. 



Thirdly. The list of names under Rubus, meaning nothing certain, 

 has been entirely left out for reasons explained in a quotation given 

 below. 



Fourthly. The Catalogue is no longer anonymous, being avowedly 

 the work of a commission appointed by the Botanical Society of Lon- 

 don, and consisting of George Edgar Dennes, Esq., honorary Secre- 

 tary, and Hewett Cottrell Watson, Esq., and we fancy we may ascribe 

 to the gentleman whose name so modestly stands second in the com- 

 mission the chief share in the undertaking. 



In getting up Catalogues of this kind two things are to be considered: 

 first, accuracy ; secondly, intelligibility : we conceive both of these 

 are acheived in an eminent degree in the publication before us, yet in 

 some cases we detect a little departm-e from rigid accuracy, not un- 

 advisedly, but fi'om some motive of expediency, which the authors, 

 had they space, would doubtless explain ; for instance, take the last 

 species in the rejected list, Equisetum fluviatile, a common English 

 plant to which Linneus and all continental authors apply this name. 

 A foreigner must suppose that the well-known Equisetum fluviatile, so 

 common on the Continent, has been recorded as an inhabitant of 

 Britain, but that Messrs. Dennes and Watson having found that record 



