637 



of the plants. To this end, it is unquestionable that copious and accurate details are 

 necessary in the first place, and before the aid of maps and tables can be called in for 

 the sake of explicitness and precision in conveying to others the knowledge so acquir- 

 ed. Interesting as it may be in itself to many minds, the public vaFue of that know- 

 ledge must be measured by the degree in which it can tend to elucidate the causes of 

 vegetable distribution ; since it is only by first ascertaining those causes that we can 

 reasonably expect to render the knowledge beneficially applicable to human affairs. 

 But much time may yet elapse before any such application of knowledge can be made. 

 " Notwithstanding the long-accumulated stores of individual facts relating to the 

 indigenous plants of this country, and to the particular localities for the rarer species, 

 as well as many full lists of the plants of single counties or other definite tracts ; and 

 notwithstanding the lively impulse which has of late years been given to such enqui- 

 ries, we are still sadly short of accurately observed facts that bear directly upon the 

 ultimate object here proposed. The facts not having been observed or recorded with 

 reference to any such end, they have consequently been, so far as that end is concern- 

 ed, too often only inadequately observed and recorded ; the most valuable or interest- 

 ing circumstances having been either noticed insufiicientlv or wholly passed over." — 

 p. 3. 



We regret that we cannot follow the author into all the details of 

 the plan of the work, which, however, we trust will be rendered intel- 

 ligible by such brief explanatory remarks as our limits will allow us 

 to give. First as to the botanical aiTangement : — 



" The so-called Natural System of arranging plants determines the order in 

 which they will be spoken of in these volumes, and which will be very nearly that 

 of Decandolle's Prodromus. Nature's own system of practical arrangement is clearly 

 a geographical one ; but for the convenience of technical botanists, it has been deemed 

 more advisable to follow the abstract system, by which plants are supposed to be united 

 into groups according to general resemblances." — p. 5. 



The nomenclature is that of Hooker's ' British Flora,' fifth edition, 

 with occasional references for synonyms to the works of Smith, Gray, 

 Withering and Hudson. " No species will be introduced into this 

 work as indigenous, unless the author has seen specimens alleged to 

 be of British growth." As examples of " the difficulty of tracing any 

 abrupt line of separation between the two classes of native and natu- 

 ralised plants," the six following trees are mentioned ; — the birch, 

 the beech, lime, sycamore, chesnut and walnut : the first of these be- 

 ing " truly indigenous," and the last " certainly introduced." The 

 author asks, "between which two, among the remaining four interme- 

 diately placed names, must we draw the line that divides the natural- 

 ised from the native species .? " — and remarks that it would be difficult 

 to obtain a unanimous decision on this question : the difficulty would 

 consequently be greater in the case of the common plants of our gar- 

 dens, corn-fields, road-sides and sea-shoreso 



