Botany and Zoology. 287 



xvhicli the sudden death of Dr. Walpers arrested in the year 1850. Dr. 

 Miiller's first fasciculus, just issued, contains 160 pages, which ai-c all oc- 

 cupied with the accessions in the few orders from Raymncidacccc to Nym- 

 phceacece. This results not from an accumulation of new genera and spe- 

 cies, hut from the plan of the work and the style of printing heing con- 

 siderably altered, but not we think improved for the purpose in view. 

 The principal part of this fasciculus is made up from the first volume of 

 Hooker and Thomson's Flora Indica, and TulasneVs Monograph of Mo- 

 ntrmacece, two books which every working botanist may be presumed to 

 possess or have access to. So it was not worth while to copy detailed 

 descriptions in full. Then, again, synonyms and varieties are displayed in 

 separate paragraphs, and the page is in other respects so open tliat one 

 might suspect it was intended to make the printed matter occupy the 

 greatest amount of space, instead of the least. The more condensed a 

 work of this kind is the better. While well-known and substantial works 

 are so copiously abstract^ from, rarer ones which we could mention and 

 some scattered publications have been overlooked. Notwithstanding these 

 faults, botanists can not be otherwise than thankful to Dr. Miiller for car- 



m 



rying on so laborious and so necessary an undertaking. a. g. 



3. Bertoloni^ Miscellanea Botanica ; fasc. 15 and 16 (1854, 1856, Bo- 

 logna.) — About a quarter of a century ago Professor Bertoloni received 

 from an American correspondent a ^et of a well-known collection of dried 

 plants made in Alabama by the late Dr. Gates, and distributed by the 

 New York Lyceum of Natural History. In 1844, iu an evil hour, he 

 began to publish new species from these materials. The extraordinary 

 stupidity of the Italian Professor's determinations, — which may be judged 

 of from the specimens already recorded in the pages of this journal, — 

 would be simply amusing, if it were not for the trouble they give to bot- 

 anists, in swelling most needlessly the lists of synonyms, already a serious 

 hindrance to the progress of the science. It is just because Bertoloni's 

 determinations are so very bad that they require to be noticed at all. 

 For, as he rarely hits the family correctly, to say nothing of the genus, 

 the ordinary means of correcting his mistakes are inapplicable. Fortu- 



" ' are generally 



collection contained, 

 enable us to ascertain what the plants in question really are. We had 

 hoped that the precious stock was exhausted, but the 15tli and 16th fas- 

 cicles of the Miscellanea Botanica afford the following novelties, viz. : 



Potamogeton delicatuluin, BertoL, which is P. hybridus of Miehaux. 



Convolvnlus condensatus, which is 



Gentiaiia yracil lima, v^'hich is Nuttall's Apteria setacea, a well-known 



Burmanniaceous plant. 



Hibiscus trisectiis^ described from foliage, without flowers or fruit, is 

 the Tread-sofdy of the South, Cnidoscolus stimulosa. 



Polygala Pseudosemya^ although described as having rose-colored 

 flowers, is pretty evidently P. lutea, a well-marked yellow-flowered species. 



Maphallia dentata^ is Gaillardia lanceolata, the raylcss state, already 

 Dotorions for havino- been formerly mistaken for Polypierit^ NntL by 



DeCandolle. 



^yriophyllum fulvescms is Proserpinaca pectinacea of Lamarck. 



Besides these supposed new species, wdiat Bertoloni names Schranhia 

 ^ncinata is evidently S. angmtata. a, a. 



Bately rude figures of the proposed new genera and species 

 given ; and these, with a knowledge of what Gates's collect! 



■■A 



