RECENT PROGRESS OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 51 
Brasiliensis,’ thanks to the munificent patronage of the Emperor and his 
Government, and to the unwearied zeal and energy of the present able editor, 
Dr. Eichler, has so far advanced, that its completion, once thought hopeless, 
may now be fairly reckoned on at no distant period. 
Turning to the desiderata in this branch of systematic botany, besides the 
completion of the above-mentioned works in progress, and of the remaining 
colonial floras begun or contemplated according to the plans of Sir W. Hooker, 
there are three which are much in need of a thorough investigation and re- 
working up on sound scientific as well as practically useful principles. These 
are the European, the Russian, and the North-American. The three together 
comprise the whole vegetation of the temperate and cold zones of the northern 
hemisphere, by far the most extended continuous flora of the globe, and the 
most closely connected with what we know of the vegetation of the latest 
preceding geological periods. Its present continuity, with only a gradual 
east-and-west change in the northern portion, but more and more marked 
divergencies as it recedes from the arctic regions, and the evidences we have 
of that continuity having been as great at a former period and in some 
instances perhaps yet wider extended, would suggest that it ought to be 
treated as one whole. That would, however, be too great an undertaking for 
a single hand; and there are other advantages in dividing it into three 
separate floras, provided the three are carried out according to one plan, with 
a uniform estimate of specific and generic grades, and each one always in close 
connexion with the other two. ‘The different materials which each of the 
three investigators would have to work upon would require some differences 
in their treatment, besides that each one ought to be an inhabitant of 
the region he inyestigates, so as to have some personal experience of its 
living flora. 
The writer of the European flora would be much more bewildered by a 
superabundance of data than at a loss on account of any deficiency. His first 
great difficulty would arise from the enormous number of names published 
by local botanists, and the consequent call upon him to carry out on a large 
scale that judicious excision of insufficiently differentiated species which I 
have above urged in the case of monographs.. His work would be more in 
the hands of the general than of the local botanist, and conciseness, method, 
and accuracy would be more important than minuteness of detail. Innova- 
tion would be avoided unless upon very strong grounds. The most useful 
sequence to be adopted in the present state of the science would be, without 
doubt, the Candollean, the genera and species restricted to the higher grades 
sanctioned by the best modern monographists and other systematists. In the 
majority of cases he would have little difficulty in this respect ; and when he 
comes to such involved genera as Ranunculus, Hieraciwm, Rubus, &c., where 
there are really so many indefinite species, he would limit his specific names 
and descriptions to the ‘ Hauptformen’ of Nigeli, which one set of botanists 
_ may designate as Linnean or legitimate and another as compound species. 
Isolated intermediate forms, whether hybrid and evanescent or more or less 
constant, and a few of the principal subspecies, varieties, critical or, in the 
Jordanian view, true species, may require mention by name, with a few 
_ descriptive notes where the low grade may be doubtful; but the great majority 
may be dismissed with a general statement of their having been proposed by 
dozens or by hundreds, as the case may be, with a careful indication, however, 
in so far as possible, of the degree in which the species admitted have been 
observed to vary, and of any difference in this respect in different parts of 
- the area of the flora. The language of such a European flora should be, 
E2 
