1861.] REVIEWS. 251 



Some botanists may be of opinion that our author is not 

 exactly correct in stating that Erodium maritimum, Coronopus 

 didyma, Euphorbia portlandica, and Agrostis setacea find (have) 

 their eastern limit in the Isle of Wight. Did he here abandon 

 his trustworthy guide? Dr. Bromfield admits the existence of 

 Agrostis setacea on Bagshot Heath. It is believed to grow also 

 on the Blackheath tract of hills^ not far from Ewhurst. Both 

 these localities are east of the Isle of Wight. Erodium maritimum 

 and Euphorhia portlandica have both been reported from Kent. 

 We will not vouch for the verity of the report, but we do vouch 

 for the extension of Coronopus didyma for at least one degree 

 further east than any part of the Isle of Wight (see ' Phytolo- 

 gist/ sub voce Senebiera.) Our author may say, "Ay ! but it is 

 a mere interloper in the vale of Thames, i.e. about Kew, Wands- 

 worth, Parson^s Green, Brixton, and Highgate." Possibly this 

 may be true, but is it anything else than a stray plant in the 

 Isle of Wight ? On Dr. Bromfield's authority, it is rarer in the 

 Isle of Wight than in the vale of the Thames, and therefore 

 more likely to be an interloper in the island than in Middlesex. 



We dislike hypercrfticism, but we confess that the first plant 

 entered by name in the general synopsis was a puzzle. "Statlce 

 occidentalis grows on rocks and clifis ^' (p. 468) . Is this plant 

 the same as Statice rariflora, Di'ej., or Statice sj)athulata, Desf.? 

 It cannot be S. rariflora, for this is said, and doubtless truly, to 

 grow in salt-marshes and^ in muddy places, and is probably, as 

 Dr. Bromfield states, a variety of S. Limonium. In the sequel, 

 viz. on p. 473, S. spathulata is entered as one of the plants to be 

 numbered with the extinct species, " Euphorbia Peplis, Lathyrus 

 maritimus." Again, two or three lines lower down the same 

 page, it is stated that " two of the rock plants are peculiar to 

 this end of the island ; if, at least, we suppose Statice occidentalis 

 still survives,^^ etc. By a logical, inductive process, it may be in- 

 ferred that Statice occidentalis and S. spathulata are synonyms. 

 It would have saved us some trouble if our author had told us 

 so at the first; or better still, if he had been contented with one 

 name for his plant, which is, after all, only a very problematical 

 inhabitant of the Isle of Wight. 



It may be of some help to those visitants of the Isle (botanical 

 visitants) who may not be so well read in the nomenclature of 

 botany as the author of this sketch, to be informed that Lepigo- 



