38 ; REPORT—1874. 
demands for single general histories of all plants. Alph. de Candolle, in the 
« Réflexions ” above referred to, has shown how hopeless it is to expect the 
completion of any single ‘Species Plantarum,’ even if limited to the technical 
elaboration of the 150,000 or more species and subspecies now known, and 
a ‘Genera Plantarum’ has now become a long and tedious labour. But we 
have a right still to hope that a general account of the Vegetable Kingdom, 
such as pre-Linnean botanists used to edit, but keeping pace with our 
advanced knowledge, may still be issued from time to time, in a single volume, 
as the work of a single author, provided he limit himself to the higher groups, 
to orders and suborders in number not above a few hundred, neglecting the 
lower groups, genera, and species, except for illustration or exemplification. 
In such a work we should expect, for each order or other group illustrated, 
the following particulars :— 
(1) A diagnosis or short indication of its most important or most generally 
prevailing character. 
(2) A more detailed technical description of its general characters, with 
indication of known exceptions. 
(3) A discussion of its affinities, including an indication of the line of 
demarcation adopted for its separation from the orders into which it may 
pass insensibly, as well as of such aberrant or isolated forms as may le 
betwe n it and some order otherwise separated by a wide gap. 
(4) Its geographical distribution and the modifications of its characters 
which prevail in different countries. 
(5) Its connexion with extinct forms, 
(6) Its properties and applied relations, industrial, economical, or phar- 
maceutical. 
Such a general history of plants is so useful not only to all classes of 
botanists, but to the followers of other branches of natural and other science, 
that it is most desirable that it should be drawn up in one or more of the 
most widely diffused modern languages, and accompanied by well-selected 
explanatory illustrations. 
We have two works which have fulfilled the greater number of the above 
conditions, bringing the science down to the comparatively recent periods 
' when they were first prepared :—Lindley’s ‘ Vegetable Kingdom,’ published 
in 1845, in English, somewhat modified in Endlicher’s ‘ Enchiridion Botani- 
cum’ in Latin in 1846, and reissued by the author, with many additional 
notes, in 1853; and Le Maout and Decaisne’s ‘ Traité de Botanique,’ pub- 
lished in French in 1868, translated into English by Mrs. Hooker, with . 
considerable additions and some modifications by Dr. Hooker, in 1873. 
Lindley’s ‘ Vegetable Kingdom ’ was chiefly founded upon a large number 
of original observations, notes, and other materials he had collected and 
partly worked up in contemplation of a ‘ Genera Plantarum,’ a work which the 
increasing calls upon his time and thoughts obliged him in the first place to 
postpone, and which he finally gave up on the appearance of the first parts 
of Endlicher’s ‘Genera.’ These materials were elaborated with great care 
into his ‘ Natural System of Botany,’ 2nd edition, 1836, and afterwards 
extended, chiefly by compilation, but always under the guidance of his very 
extensive practical knowledge of plants, into the ‘ Vegetable Kingdom,’ 
which long remained a most valuable résumé of all that was important to 
know of the 303 orders into which the subject matter was divided. This 
work, however, is now nearly thirty years (or the greater part of the original 
matter nearly forty years) old, and is thrown quite out of date by the great 
progress the science has made during that period. The present proprietors 
