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Notice of 'A Manual of Botany ; being an Introduction to the Study 

 of the Structure, Physiology, and Classification of Plants. By 

 John Button Balfour, M.D., F.L.S., F.R.S.E., Professor of Me- 

 dicine and Botany in the University of Edinburgh. Second P^di- 

 lion. London : John Joseph Griffin & Co. 1851.' 



Also, a Review of the above, received as a kind of Handbill, but pub- 

 lished in the ' North British Agriculturist,' dated Wednesday, 

 May 7, 1851. 



Also, a second Revietv of the same work, published in the ' Monthly 

 Medical Jourtial of Botany \for June, 1851. 



Also, ' Singular Specimens of the Edinburgh Practice of Criticism. 

 By John Joseph Geiffin. London : John J. Griffin & Co. 1851.' 



Also, ' Letter to R. K. Greville ; being an Answer to certain State- 

 ments contained in a Pamphlet intituled ' Singular Practices^ Sjc. 

 By John Hutton Balfouk, M.D. Edinburgh : Adam & Charles 

 Black. 1851.' 



The vokime of which the title stands at the head of the foregoing 

 list was fully, fairly, and favourably reviewed in the ' Phytologist,' as 

 far back as July, 1849. The second edition differs from the first 

 scarcely at all. There are a few alterations, it is true, but these con- 

 sist almost entirely in the correction of unimportant errors of gram- 

 mar and orthography, and a few of what among printers generally 

 pass by the name of " literals.' 



Besides these trifling corrections, there is one, and only one, marked 

 improvement, and that is the location of the Rhizanths. In the first 

 edition this debatable group stands as order 163, between 162 Ne- 

 penthaceae and 164 Datiscacese, the three orders (162, 163, 164) being 

 placed between two others, which will probably be more familiar to 

 many English botanists, namely, Aristolochiacese and Empetraceae. 

 To all these four orders the Rhizanths have but little external or struc- 

 tural resemblance. In the second edition the Rhizanths are placed 

 between the Endogens and Acrogens, the orders being numbered 210 

 Gramineae, 211 Rhizanthese, and 212 Equisetacese. By general con- 

 sent the Rhizanths hold a dubious position in technical classification, 

 having characters, as all systematic botanists agree, intei-mediate be- 

 tween the phanerogamous and cryptogamous plants, though, on the 

 whole, considerably nearer the former. This improvement is one of 

 botanical importance, and exhibits the editor of the second edition 

 as a more profound and trustworthy systematist than the author of the 

 VOL. IV. 3 K 



