246 ON A NEW PINAX OR INDEX OP BRITISH PLANTS. [AugUSt, 



appear in another division. This would simplify the London 

 Catalogue, by reducing its four divisions to two, and would 

 satisfy the conscientious scruples of the timid by the right line 

 separating the genuine from the suspicious in-dwellers. 



In most plants the question of nationality is both useless and 

 unanswerable ; yet, for the sake of the few species whose intro- 

 duction is known, perhaps it would be judicious to make this 

 concession; but the italics, the stars and daggers, etc., should 

 be doomed to perpetual banishment or utter destruction, as the 

 relics of barbarism, ignorance, and illiberality. These signs are 

 as useless, and will soon be as antiquated, as the old leathern 

 buckets that still hang under the ceilings of ancient establish- 

 ments, — quite as ineffective for helping the botanical inquirer as 

 these rows of utensils would be in a conflagration. 



The numbers, and also the census, useless though the former 

 be, and imperfect though the latter be, might be retained in 

 deference to respectable prejudices. 



The Comparative List, as previously said, is not labour thrown 

 away, although a better one might be expected, shows what dis- 

 crepancies exist among living authors both on nomenclature and 

 species. But this is as nothing to the varieties of opinion about 

 the origin of the plants as native or foreign, wild or cultivated, 

 concerning which this elaborate new list gives no information 

 beyond what may be derived from the author's works, from 

 which it is derived. 



An Index or Pinax, compiled on the principles proposed, would 

 give all that is to be gathered from both the London Catalogue 

 and from the Comparative List, and much more ; for it would 

 be an epitome of the history of every British plant, and it would 

 direct the student to all the sources whence he could obtain 

 the entire amount known about every plant, — at least all that 

 has been recorded by authors whose opinions are worth conside- 

 ration. 



One of the most important features of the proposed Index 

 would be that all the authorities for a given name would appear 

 in juxtaposition. There would be no unnecessary repetition, and 

 there would be no omission of what a student would wish to 

 learn. When all the authors, or say all the descriptive floras, 

 from Hudson to the present time, agree, there needs no entrance 

 of this fact; it would be inferred that these are not critical 



