20 REVIEWS. 



A year ago we had the pleasure to notice the eighth volume 

 of this indispensable work, the 1st of the series under the 

 editorship of Professor Alphonse De Candolle. The ninth 

 volume, now before us, was issued on the 1st of January 

 last ; and the forthcoming portions are in course of prepa- 

 ration under such favorable circumstances that we may now 

 confidently look for the appearance of a volume a year, and for 

 the full completion of this " Species Plantarum," according 

 to the natural system, at no very distant period. We have 

 already mentioned the arrangements that are made to secure 

 this desirable consummation, and by which the work becomes 

 as it were a series of separate monographs, prepared by the 

 most skilful hands, under the superintendence of a common 

 editor. Every botanist is aware of the improvement of the 

 successive volumes as they appeared from the unrivalled hands 

 of the elder De Candolle ; and a further improvement is mani- 

 fest in the later portions, elaborated or revised by his son, 

 es23ecially in the introduction of characters drawn from aesti- 

 vation, placentation, the structure of the ovule, and other 

 points which have only quite recently been turned to special 

 account by systematic botanists. A particular account of a 

 volume which is or soon will be in the hands of every working 

 botanist, cannot be necessary, and we have not time at present 

 for special enumeration. The ninth volume commences with 

 the Loganiacece, by Alphonse De Candolle. The genus 

 Coelostylis, Torr. and Gr., is correctly reduced to Spigelia. 

 Under this order we have a tribe created for the long- vexed 

 Gelsemium, which we suspect is not yet finally at rest. Next 

 follows the Gentianacece, elaborated by Grisebach, whose 

 recent monograph of that family, which forms the basis of 

 the present arrangement, was duly noticed in this Journal. 

 The order Bignoniacece is edited from the manuscripts of the 

 elder De Candolle ; as are also the orders Sesamece and Cyr- 

 tandracece, which last has been reduced by Mr. Brown to Ges- 

 neriacece. The Hydrophyllaceoe are elaborated by Alphonse 

 De Candolle, in which, by attributing generic importance to 

 the presence or absence of the appendages or nectariferous 

 scales within the tube of the corolla, the number of genera is 



