158 



logue of species, with their usual situations of growth, indications of 

 frequency or rarity, and localities for the less common species. The 

 text is printed only on the alternate pages ; thus leaving the opposite 

 pages blank, for " additions and memoranda,' 1 — a good mode of print- 

 ing a local list. The arrangement by natural orders is followed, and 

 both arrangement and nomenclature are made to correspond with the 

 ' London Catalogue of British Plants,' published for the Botanical 

 Society. This course is a judicious one. Local lists should always 

 be thrown into the natural arrangement ; and their usefulness is 

 always increased by correspondence with some well-known standard. 

 Whatever difference of opinion may exist about species and varieties, 

 about generic and specific names, in which no two of our general 

 floras do correspond with each other, the wide circulation of the 

 ' London Catalogue,' — the countless specimens distributed to herbaria, 

 British and foreign, with labels corresponding to that Catalogue by 

 their names and numbers, — the ease with which any moderately good 

 botanist may certainly know and identify the species or variety in- 

 tended by the nomenclature of the same Catalogue, — all strongly 

 recommend its use as a standard, calculated to prevent misapprehen- 

 sion and error, through variations of nomenclature. Moreover, the 

 1 Cybele Britannica ' is arranged in close conformity with the ' London 

 Catalogue,' and may be regarded as the generalized and condensed 

 summary of all the local lists or floras ; so that the adoption of the 

 same arrangement must give increased value to any later published 

 flora, by facilitating comparisons between the local and the general, 

 the single and the aggregate, the details and the' summaries. 



Unfortunately, there are some omissions which detract from the 

 usefulness and value of the ' Flora of Leicestershire,' and which it 

 would be well for the author to supply, by giving the needful explana- 

 tions in the pages of the ■ Phytologist,' if it should be found now too 

 late to add an explanatory sheet to the printed volume. We see, for 

 instance, only the name of the printer, as above indicated, on the 

 wrapper and title; and the public is thus left uninformed whether or 

 not the work is a published one ; and, if so, where and from whom it 

 can be purchased. It must be almost needless to observe, that every 

 published work ought to have the name of a London publisher on its 

 title-page. The volume is anonymous, which no scientific work should 

 be ; and less than all should a work be published anonymously, which 

 is simply a list or record of stated facts. As no authority is given 

 with the localities enumerated for the rarer species, it remains doubt- 

 ful whether they are set forth on the individual credit of the anony- 



