46 REPORT—1874. 
of publication, from materials already in our herbaria, at between 110,000 
and 120,000. A competent botanist would readily:get through three or four 
thousand in a year. In the ‘ Flora Australiensis’ I had no difficulty in pre- 
paring a thousand to twelve hundred in the year, and that was all original 
work, entailing the personal examination of every species often in numerous 
specimens, and a long and tedious investigation of synonyms. Such a com- 
pilation as I have above characterized would require, it is true, a competent 
knowledge of plants and occasional verifications ; but still the labour would be 
reduced by at least two thirds ; and 300 species a month, with a month or six 
weeks’ vacation, would be no great strain upon the mind. Thus three or four 
botanists might complete the synopsis of ten thousand species in the year; 
and the general synoptical enumeration of all known Phenogams would not 
be beyond the range of possibility, however little chance there may be of my 
living to see it commenced. 
Cryptogamic details require the cooperation of more special botanists, who 
have already furnished us with monographs or synopses of some of the 
primary groups. In Ferns, Hooker's ‘ Species Filicum’ is very complete, and 
is brought down to the present day by his ‘ Synopsis Filicum,’ edited by Baker, 
of which a new edition is now ready. For Mosses, the last general work 
is Carl Mueller’s ‘Species Muscorum,’ completed in 1851, since which date 
the number of species described has been at least doubled. Modern musco- 
logists have, however, so much lowered their generic and specific standards, 
that they have placed the study of this most interesting class of plants almost 
beyond the reach of the general botanist. A monographer who would boldly 
reestablish the species according to Linnean principles, and group them in a 
manageable number of genera, treating the lower grades as subspecies only, 
disencumbering the binomial nomenclature from them, would render a great 
service to science. In Hepatice there has been no general ‘Species’ since that 
of Gottsche and Lindenberg, begun in 1844, and, by means of supplements, 
brought down to 1847. Lichens are still more in arrear. Nylander began, 
indeed, a new ‘ Synopsis’ in 1867, but it has never been continued. In Algee, 
Agardh’s ‘Species Algarum,’ commenced in 1848, was completed in 1863; ° 
and Kiitzing’s ‘Phycologia’ and ‘Species Algarum, issued in 1849, have, 
through the nineteen volumes of his ‘Tabule,’ been brought down to 1869, 
The enormous class of Fungi is much more complicated, and their study much 
more specialized than any other branch of systematic botany ; and although 
mycologists, no more than phenogamists, have at present any general com- 
prehensive systematic work, they have the advantage of Streinz’s ‘Nomen- 
clator,’ a convenient general index to the numerous detached monographs 
and papers descriptive of fungi. 
4. Monoerapus of Orders and Genera. 
Monographs, like « Ordines Plantarum,’ are general histories of plants; but 
the feld being limited to single orders or genera, the author can descend to 
#. auricula and H. glaciale, or of H. murorum and H. vulgatum, should be included in 
this stage, or are still in the first-mentioned category. ; 
3. Species between which no constant intermediates survive, but which still are capable 
of producing intermediate hybrids, are represented by H. alpinum and H. villosum, by 
H. alpinum and H. glaucum, by H. murorum and H, umbellatum, &e. 
4, Lastly, the three sections Pilosella, Archicracivm, ard Stcnotheca are races which 
have become so far distanced frcm each other that hybrid fertilization no longer takes 
place between them.—Sé/zungsh. 1866, i. 472. 
