1858.] REVIEWS. 471 



Mr. J. H. Davis reported two Mosses, new to North Yorkshire, 

 as having been found by Mr. James Dalton in Cleveland -^ — 



Discelium nudum, Brid. On clay at the foot of Kirby Bank, 

 on the left-hand side of the Bilsdale bridle-road ; sparingly. 



Schistostega osmundacea, W. and M. In a dark cavern at the 

 Wainstone rocks, with Tetrodontium Brownianum, fruiting plen- 

 tifully. April, 1857. 



He exhibited specimens of two curious Sphagna, forms of S. 

 contortum and cuspidatum, collected by Dr. Lyle in Fifeshire. 



Irvine's British Botany; or the Illustrated Handbook of the 

 British Plants. Thomas Nelson and Sons, Paternoster-row. 



On two former occasions (see p. 244 and p. 321 of the current 

 volume of the ' Phytologist^) this work, published in successive 

 parts, has been already noticed ; but as it has now been brought 

 to a conclusion by the issue of the Fifth Part, it seems an oppor- 

 tune occasion to recall the attention of our readers to its scope 

 and comparative merits. 



Although we possessed previously to this publication some 

 excellent manuals of British botany, yet they were confined 

 chiefly to the descriptive department, whereas this, in addition, 

 contains an introduction to the Science of Botany, occupying the 

 whole of the First Part, in which the subject in its various rela- 

 tions is considered comprehensively, yet necessarily with some 

 degree of conciseness, and, which is probably its most distinguish- 

 ing character, in the most simple, intelligible, and perspicuous 

 phraseology which the subject admitted. 



In the Second Part the purely descriptive portion of the work 

 commences, and occupies the greatest remaining part of the 

 work, which is everywhere copiously illustrated by figures, repre- 

 senting the different Orders into which plants are reduced in what 

 is called the Natural System of botany. In these figures the 

 dissections and explanations given of the organs of fructification, 

 etc., will be found to be very instructive, especially to junior 

 students. 



At the end of the descriptive part of the work (p. 791) there 

 follows a useful appendix of some errata and corrigenda — almost 



