292 REVIEWS. 



who stand high on the list, have fallen much into the habit of 

 founding species on fragmentary or quite insufficient herba- 

 rium specimens ; instead of passing them over without men- 

 tion, or at least without naming them. One is apt to suppose 

 that a description of an incomplete specimen, say without flow- 

 ers, may be readily eked out later by another hand supplied 

 with the missing parts. This, as De Candolle says, is a mis- 

 take. The succeeding botanist is hindered more than he is 

 helped by such work. And it is the same with species founded 

 on figures, such, for instance, as those of Mocino and Sesse, 

 upon which the elder De Candolle established species and 

 some genera in the earlier volumes of the " Prodromus." As 

 to " genera dubia vel non satis nota," very few can be laid 

 at the door of first-class botanists. In the list of names of 

 deceased botanists which are notable for their absence, the 

 name of Torrey is inserted between that of the elder De Can- 

 dolle and that of the elder Hooker. 



In the chapter on the description of groups superior to 

 species, the author enumerates and sketches the character of 

 the six " Genera Plantarum " which have appeared within the 

 180 years of modern botany ; the immortal works of Tournefort 

 (" Institutiones," 1700), Limmeus (the first edition of whose 

 " Genera " was published in 1737), A. L. Jussieu (1789), 

 Endlicher (183G-1840), Meisner (1836-1843, which is much 

 less known), and finally of Bentham and Hooker, which began 

 in 1862, and is now three quarters finished. Tournefort fixed 

 the rank and character of genera, Linnaeus tersely and clearly 

 defined them, Jussieu arranged them under natural orders, 

 defining these, Endlicher and Lindley developed the hierar- 

 chy of groups superior to orders, also the tribes inferior to 

 them, and the latter is deservedly praised for his sagacity in 

 discerning affinities, the former for the perfection of his style ; 

 and to Bentham and Hooker is justly awarded the crowning 

 merit of having, far beyond their predecessors in this century, 

 verified or developed the characters of the genera by a wide 

 and direct study of the herbarium materials. 



Floras, or descriptions of natural groups, not in their 

 entirety but so far only as represented in a particular country 



