IMPORTANT WORKS. 6 



Dvor, no idea of methodical arrangement, his work is a perfect 

 chaos. 



'• Mueli has been done, however, for tlie ehicidation of the 

 order in local flonis. . . . About the close of tlie last century, 

 several continental botanists proposed new genera for anonuilous 

 Euroi>cau grasses . . . that were overlooked by Beauvois, Persoon, 

 "Willdcnow, and other general systematists. Several of the same 

 genera have since been re-established, but under other names which 

 have now been so long and so universally adopted that they must 

 be i;onsidered as having accjuired a right of i)rescrii)tion to overrule 

 the strict laws of priority. It would indeed be mere pedantry, 

 highly iMconvenient to lK)tanists, and so far detrimental to science, 

 now to substitute lilidiwubachia for Sunjlndii, Fihicliia for Ci/iwdo/i, 

 JSaiitio for PubjpoijDU, or Siu(jlin(ji(t for Triodia. 



"Since the days of Kunth, Trinius, and Xees, the most im- 

 portant local revisions of Gramineaj are: Andersson's '(Jramincie 

 Scaiulinavia^' I*arlatore"'s first volume of his * Flora Italiana,' 

 Cosson and Durieu's (Jlumaceous volume of the great unfinished 



* Flore d'Algerie,'' Doell's (Jramineae for the great Brazilian Flora 

 founded by Martins, and Fournier's (Jramineie for the Mexican 

 Flora he has undertaken; partial revisions by Grisebach in his 



* Spicilegium Flora? Kumelica? et Bithyniciv.' in the fourth volume 

 of 'Flora Kossica,' and by Emile Desvaux in Claude (Jray's 



* Chilian Flora,' supplemented by new genera and si)ecies pub- 

 lished by Philipjti in various papers on Chilian plants. Andcrsson 

 was a most acute observer, but, for want of access to an extensive 

 library, his synonyms are often very inaccurate. I'alatore's mono- 

 graph of Italian gnisses is thoroughly to be relied upon when the 

 result of his own observations, but old ern)rs have sometimes been 

 copied from others. Cosson and Durieu's • Moiu)graph of Algerian 

 Grasses' is a most valuable treatise. Grisebach has also doiie 

 much for the elucidation of oriental (Jramineic. In Doell's work 

 I have been disappointed, as he exhibits a general curele-isiicss in 

 redaction. Advance sheets of Kugcne Fournier's 'Enumeration 

 f)f Mexican (!raminea>' have k'cn published. Ilis genus Li'soiirdia 

 had already been published for a southern species by I'hilippi 



