041 



doubt both the policy and the expediency of the recent change in the 

 arrangement of the work, unaccompanied by corresponding improve- 

 ments in the matter, of which more anon. 



In addition to the works above named, which are all arranged ac- 

 cording to the Linnaean system, and have all gone through several 

 editions, we may here mention two others, in the arrangement of which 

 the natural system was followed ; we allude to Lindley's Synopsis and 

 Macreight's Manual. All these different publications have, however, 

 more or less the air of compilations ; their respective authors or edi- 

 tors having probably supposed that as so much had already been 

 effected in British Botany, nothing more was required, than perhaps 

 just to register any new species or variety that might by chance offer 

 itself to their notice ; such an event as the appearance of an original 

 British Flora being deemed beyond the bounds of possibility. The 

 publication of Leighton's ' Flora of Shropshire ' we believe to have 

 had some effect in dispelling this illusion ; at all events it would na- 

 turally lead to the reflection, that if in the Flora of a single county so 

 many improvements could be effected by the exercise of a little origi- 

 nal observation, it were not unreasonable to suppose that a patient 

 and careful investigation of the general Flora of the kingdom, would 

 yield a rich and abundant reward to the botanist who should under- 

 take the task. 



I'he state of botanical science in Britain, at the period when Mr. 

 Babington first commenced his investigation of our Flora, and its 

 probable causes, are thus described in the Preface to that gentleman's 

 Manual. 



" From the attention which has long been paid to the elucidation of the Flora of 

 Britain, and the numerous excellent botanists who have, since the time of the justly 

 celebrated Ray (not to go further back), employed their talents upon an endeavour to 

 determine the indigenous products of these kingdoms, the author, in common it is be- 

 lieved with most English botanists, did not suppose that much remained to be done in 

 British Botany ; for he could not expect that after the labours of such men as Smith, 

 Hooker, Lindley, and others, and the publication of so invaluable and unrivalled a col- 

 lection of figures as is contained in the ' English Botany,' there could still be many 

 questions concerning the nomenclature, or any considerable number of unascertained 

 species, the determination of which would fall to his lot. He had not however ad- 

 vanced far in the critical examination of our native plants, before he found that a care- 

 ful comparison of indigenous specimens with the works of eminent continental authors, 

 and with plants obtained from other parts of Europe, must necesssrily be made, for it 

 appeared that in very many cases the nomenclature employed in England was differ- 

 ent from that used in other countries, that often plants considered as varieties here 

 were held to be distinct species abroad, that several of our species were only looked up- 

 on as varieties by them, and also that the mode of grouping into genera was frequently 

 essentially different. p., . 



3 I * 



