October 6, 1910] 



NATURE 



453 



to clear some of them away and to make the path less 

 ditliciilt to those who come after us ; and I have also 

 gained a fairly good acquaintance with the means at the 

 command of students ul the floras of other countries, so 

 as to have a standard for comparison in the estimate to be 

 formed of the condition of matters in our own country. 



In how far is the present provision for the study of 

 thi' llora of the British Islands sufficient and satisfactory? 



I venture to hope that the subject will be regarded as 

 among those for the consideration of which the British 

 Association was formed, and that a favourable view will 

 be taken of the conclusions which I take this opportunity 

 to lay before you. What, then, is the present provision 

 for the study of our plants? Since the days of Morrison 

 and Ray there have been many workers, especially during 

 the past century ; and an extensive literature has grown 

 up, in the form both of books and of papers, the latter 

 more or less comprehensive, in the scientific journals and 

 in the transactions of societies. These papers contain 

 nuich that is of great value ; but, owing to the absence 

 of any classified index, most of the information in it is 

 beyond the reach of anyone, except at the expenditure of 

 much time and labour. The constantly increasing accumu- 

 lation of new publications makes the need for a classified 

 index always more urgent ; for the mass of literature is 

 at present one of the greatest obstacles to the undertaking 

 of new investigations, because of the uncertainty whether 

 they may not have been already undertaken and over- 

 looked through want of time or opportunity to search the 

 mass exhaustively. 



While the early writers of descriptive floras sought to 

 include every species of plant known to occur in Britain, 

 this has not been attempted during the past seventy or 

 eighty years, and instead of one great work we now have 

 monographs of the greater groups, such as Babington's 

 " Manual " and Hooker's " Student's Flora " of the 

 vascular plants, Braithwaite's " Mossflora," &c. Local 

 floras still, in a good many cases, aim at including all 

 plants known to grow apparently wild in the districts to 

 which they refer ; but they are often little more than lists 

 of species and varieties and of localities in which these 

 have been found. In some, however, there are descriptions 

 of new forms and notes of general value, which are apt 

 to be overlooked because of the place in which they appear. 



The early works were necessarily not critical in their 

 treatment of closely allied species and varieties, but thev 

 are valuable as giving evidence of what plants were sup- 

 posed to be native in England when they were published. 

 Even the works that were issued after Linnjeus had 

 established the binominal nomenclature for a time related 

 almost wholly to England. Sibbald in " Scotia Illustrata " 

 (1684) enumerated the plants believed by him to be native 

 in Scotland, and of those then cultivated. Between his 

 book and Lightfoot's " Flora Scotia," published in 1777, 

 very little relating to the flora of Scotland appeared. Irish 

 plants were still later in being carefully studied. 



The floras of Hudson, Withering, Lightfoot, and Smith, 

 all of which include all species of known British plants, 

 follow the Linnrean classification and nomenclature in so 

 far as the authors were able to identify the Linnsan 

 species in the British flora. " English Botany," begun in 

 1795. with plates by Sowerby and text by Smith, was a 

 work of the first rank in its aim of figuring all British 

 plants and in the excellence of the plates ; but it shared 

 the defect of certain other great floras in the plates being 

 prepared and issued as the plants could be procured, and 

 thus being without order. Its cost also necessarily put it 

 beyond the reach of most botanists, except those that had 

 the advantage of access to it in some large library. A 

 second edition, issued at a lower price, and with the 

 plants arranged on the Linnsean system, was inferior to 

 the first, in the plates being only partially coloured and 

 in having the text much curtailed. The so-called third 

 edition of the " English Botany," issued 1868-86, is a 

 new work so far as the text is concerned, that being the 

 work of Dr. Boswell Syme, who made it worthily repre- 

 sentative of its subject ; byt the plates, with few excep- 

 tions, are reissues of those of the first edition, less perfect 

 as impressions and far less carefully coloured ; and this 

 applies with still greater force to a reissue of the third 

 edition a few years ago. This edition, moreover, included 



NO. 2136, VOL. 84] 



only the vascular plants and Characeae. As this is the 

 only large and fully illustrated British flora that has been 

 attempted, it is almost needless to add that in this respect 

 provision for the study of the flora of our islands is far 

 behind that of certain other countries, and very notably 

 behind that made in the " Flora danica." 



Turning next to the provision of less costly aids to the 

 study of British plants, we have manuals of most of the 

 larger groups. The vascular plants are treated of in 

 numerous works, including a considerable number of illus- 

 trated books in recent years, inexpensive but insufficient 

 for any but the most elementary students. Fitch's out- 

 line illustrations to Bentham's " Handbook to the British 

 Flora," supplemented by W. G. Smith, were issued in a 

 separate volume in 1S87, which is still the best for use 

 in the inexpensive works of this kind. Babington's 

 " Manual," on its first appearance in 1843, was gladly 

 welcomed as embodying the result of careful and con- 

 tinued researches by its author into the relations of British 

 plants to their nearest relatives on the Continent of 

 Europe ; and each successive issue up to the eighth in 

 iSSi received the careful revision of the author, and con- 

 tained additions and modifications. In 1904 a ninth 

 edition was edited, after the author's death, by H. and J. 

 Groves ; but, though the editors included notes left by 

 Prof. Babington prepared for a new edition, they were 

 " unable to make alterations in the treatment of some of 

 the critical genera which might perhaps have been 

 desirable." The " Student's Flora of the British Islands," 

 by Sir J. D. Hooker, issued in 1870, took the place of 

 the well-known " British Flora " (1830, and in sub- 

 sequent editions until the eighth in i860, the last three 

 being issued in collaboration by Sir W. J. Hooker and 

 Prof. Walker-Arnott). The third edition of the " Student's 

 Flora " appeared in 1884, and there has been none since. 

 Mr. F. N. Williams's " Prodromus Flora; Britannicae," 

 begun in 1901, of which less than one-half has yet 

 appeared, though a work of much value and authority, is 

 scarcely calculated for the assistance of the ordinary 

 student; and Mr. Druce's new edition of Hayward's 

 " Botanist's Pocket Book " " is intended merely to enable 

 the botanist in the field to name his specimens approxi- 

 mately, and to refresh the memory of the more advanced 

 worker." In all the books that are intended for the use 

 of British botanists, apart from one or two recently issued 

 local floras, the classification is still that in use in the 

 middle of last century, even to the extent in the most of 

 them of retaining Coniferfe as a division of Dicotyledones. 

 .'\part from this, the critical study of British plants has 

 led to the detection of numerous previously unobserved and 

 unnamed forms, which find no place in the " Student's 

 Flora," and are only in part noticed in the recent edition 

 of the " Manual." 



The " Lists " of vascular plants of the British fiora_ that 

 have recently been issued by Messrs. Rendle and Britten, 

 by Mr. Druce, and as the tenth edition of the " London 

 Catalogue of British Plants," are all important docu- 

 ments 'for the study of the British flora : but they illus- 

 trate very forcibly certain of the difficulties that beset the 

 path of the student eager to gain a knowledge of the 

 plants of his native land. In these lists he finds _ it 

 scarcely possible to gain a clear idea of how far the species 

 and varieties of the one correspond with those of the 

 other, owing to the diversities of the names employed. 

 It would be a great boon to others, as well as to students, 

 were a full synonymic list prepared to show clearly the 

 equivalence of the names where those for the same species 

 or variety differ in the different lists and manuals. _ Prob- 

 ably in time an agreement will be generally arrived at 

 regarding the names to be accepted, but that desirable 

 consummation seems hardly yet in sight. Meantime, the 

 most useful step seems to be to show in how far there is 

 agreement in fact under the different names. 



Among ,the Cryptogams certain groups have fared better 

 than the higher plants as regards both their later treat- 

 ment and their more adequate illustration by modern 

 methods and standards. Several works of great value 

 have dealt with the mosses, the latest being Braithwaite's 

 " British Moss-flora," completed in iSqg. The Sphagna 

 were also treated by Braithwaite in 1880, and are to be the 

 subject of a monograph in the Ray Society's series. The 



