June 30, 1892] 



NATURE 



197 



ENGLISH BO TAN V. 

 English Botany, Supplement to the Third Edition. 

 Part I. (Orders I.-XXII.). Compiled and Illustrated 

 by N. E. Brown, of the Royal Herbarium, Kew. 

 Pp. 56, viii., 6 Plates. (London : Bell and Sons, 1891 

 [1892].) 



THE third edition of "English Botany" was begun 

 just thirty years since by Dr. Boswell (then Syme), 

 and continued at somewhat uncertain intervals, the 

 flowering plants being completed in 1872. The ferns 

 followed at a later period, and the volume containing 

 them was completed by Mr. N, E. Brown, owing to the 

 failure of Dr. Boswell's health. 



Although styled a third edition. Dr. Boswell's work was^ 

 as everyone knows, a thoroughly new book. It was the pro- 

 duction of one who knew plants in the field as well as in 

 the herbarium, and who had a firm hold of his subject. 

 Mr. J. G. Baker, who speaks with authority in matters of 

 this kind, says : — 



" It is not alone the fulness and accuracy 

 ■of the descriptions that make the book so valuable, but 

 the power he shows in grasping the relationship of the 

 types, and the acute sense of proportion shown in their 

 arrangement. ... I never cease, when I use the book, to 

 admire the skill which is shown in dividing out the types 

 into species, sub-species, and varieties— a task that was 

 •done so thoroughly well that when Sir J. D. Hooker, with all 

 his wide experience, went over the same ground shortly 

 after, in his * Student's Flora,' he found extremely little 

 to change." ^ 



The book, indeed, had defects, among which may 

 be mentioned the "popular portion" and the bad 

 colouring of the plates, but for these Dr. Boswell 

 was not responsible : and although the history of our 

 British flora may seem to some to have received less 

 attention than it merited, the author's work well deserves 

 the high praise which Mr. Baker bestowed upon it. 



The first part of the " Supplement," now before us, is 

 the work of Mr. N. E. Brown. Mr. Brown has long been 

 recognized as an authority upon certain difficult groups of 

 plants. He has probably a greater knowledge of the 

 StapeliecE, for instance, than any man living ; he has done 

 much good work among the Aroidece ; and his many years' 

 employment in the Kew Herbarium has been productive of 

 other valuable contributions to systematic botany. He is 

 careful and painstaking, and a fair draughtsman. Yet 

 with all these qualifications he is not the man to whom 

 the " Supplement to English Botany " should have been 

 entrusted. Such a task could only be carried out satis- 

 factorily by one whose knowledge of British plants was 

 based upon an acquaintance with them in the field as 

 well as in the herbarium, and Mr. Brown's name does not 

 occur to us in this connection. 



There was, as it seems to us, one way, and only one, in 

 which a " Supplement to English Botany " could have 

 been done satisfactorily. During the last thirty year? 

 our flora has received many additions of bond fide types ; 

 these should, of course, have been figured and described. 

 Having regard to the execution of the third edition, the 

 novelties in certain critical genera — such as Rubus and 

 Hieracium — might have found a place ; although the 

 correlation of English with continental forms which is 

 still proceeding in the former genus, and the (too slow) 



' Journal of Botany, 1888, p. 83. 



NO. I 183, VOL. 46] 



publication of Mr. F. J. Hanbury's monograph in the 

 latter, would have justified their partial if not entire 

 exclusion. But the attempt to put into the old bottles 

 the new wine of recent research could only result, as it 

 has resulted, in failure. The Batrachian Ranunculi, for 

 instance, may not have been treated satisfactorily by Dr. 

 Boswell ; and Mr. Brown perhaps does well to repro- 

 duce a subsequent note by that author modifying his 

 views. But the treatment as it stood was a consistent 

 piece of work— the expression of the opinion of one 

 man. Mr. Brown endeavours to fit Mr. Hiern's well- 

 known paper on these plants into Dr. Boswell's original 

 descriptions — a Procrustean undertaking, and one which, 

 in our judgment, is entirely valueless, representing as it 

 does neither Dr. Boswell's, Mr. Hiern's, nor any other 

 consistent view about these troublesome plants. Mr. 

 Brown's style is so terribly involved that it is often very 

 difficult to ascertain what he means ; and he would 

 have been far wiser had he left the Batrachian butter- 

 cups alone. 



For his rearrangement of Thalictrum he made 

 "a careful examination of all the material at [his] 

 disposal." It will hardly be believed that neither in this 

 nor in any other instance has he taken the trouble to 

 consult Dr. Boswell's own herbarium, although this, as 

 Mr. Brown must know, is readily accessible to all London 

 botanists. The craze — we can use no milder term — for 

 burdening our lists with varietal names on the most 

 trivial pretexts receives Mr. Brown's support : he resus- 

 citates Pritzel's names for the bluish and reddish-flowered 

 forms q{ Anemone nemorosa (identifying the former with 

 the A. Robinsoniana of gardens), although he adds that 

 they are "mere colour forms," with "numerous inter- 

 mediate shades." Mr. Melvill's name is attached to a 

 " var. rosea " of Silene gallica, although he did not 

 rank it as such, but referred to it as a " form merging by 

 every gradation into" quinquevulnera ; and Mr. Brown 

 enriches our nomenclature with a new name — " Silene 

 anglicavzx. maculata, N.E. Br." 



Speaking of Mr. Pryor's var. oleracea of Silene Cucu- 

 balus, Mr. Brown says : — 



" If the plant intended is the same as 5". inflata var. 

 oleracea, ^icxxvw's,, ' Flora der Gegend um Dresden,' ed. 2, 

 vol. i. p. 313 (1821), which is figured in Reichenbach, 

 Icones Fl. Germ, et Helvet., vol. vi. pi. 300, f. 5120 y, 

 it is," &c. 



Now, Mr. Pryor appends to his varietal name a refer- 

 ence to " Bor. Fl. Centr., ed. iii., ii., 95," and Boreau 

 cites Reichenbach's t. 300 for his plant. How, then, can 

 there be any question as to the plant " intended " ? If 

 Mr. Brown means to say that he is doubtful as to the 

 accuracy of Mr. Pryor's identification, that is, of course, 

 another matter. 



Prof. L. H. Bailey lately spoke with deserved severity 

 of certain " authors of local floras " as obtaining " a cheap 

 notoriety by making new combinations " in nomenclature ; 

 and no one can glance through this " Supplement," or refer 

 to the pages wasted in discussing the nomenclature of 

 Corydalis and Spergularia, without applying his remarks, 

 to the compiler thereof. 



Much space is also taken up, and in our opinion wasted 

 by the relegation of species to other genera than those in 

 which they were placed by Dr. Boswell. The following 



