Bibliographical Notice. 257 
or vice versd, it is absolutely necessary that synonymy be most care- 
fully studied. It is therefore with extreme regret that we read the 
note (very true, however, as it is) which the Professor feels com- 
pelled to add to his account of our British Rubi and Roses, after his 
years of study (p. 106), that ‘‘when the continental plants are 
better known it is feared that considerable changes of nomenclature 
will be necessary.” 
Though the present writer certainly considers Professor Babing- 
ton’s ‘Manual’ the most useful from many points of view that we 
have, yet, bearing in mind the odiousness of comparisons and the 
author’s remark in the preface, that “the portability of this volume 
is perhaps its most valuable quality,” there are points where it comes 
short of an ideal flora. ‘ Facts relating to geographical distribu- 
tion are usually omitted,” but sometimes inserted in a most tanta- 
lizing manner, so that one is inclined to regret the ranges in alti- 
tude and in other countries which form so instructive a feature in 
Sir Joseph Hooker’s ‘ Student’s Flora.’ We should often also have 
been glad of more synonyms, and think the name of the recorder of 
new plants might well be uniformly given as well as the reference 
to the first publication. Again, the descriptions of a considerable 
and multifarious number of plants are enclosed in brackets, whilst 
others are marked by asterisks or other signs; but there seems to 
be some want of a rigid uniform system upon which these signs are to 
be employed, as there is also less of exactitude in the principle of 
exclusion and inclusion than in the works of the late Mr. Watson. 
For instance, such casuals as Malva verticillata and Staphylea pin- 
naia are perhaps rightly excluded, whilst Narcissus lobularis, N. 
incomparabilis, Crocus argenteus, and Datura Stramonium are in- 
cluded. It would be useful for field botanists to have all casuals 
described; but in forming an estimate of our indigenous flora we 
require more rigid excision. Professor Babington seems to have 
erred on one side or the other. As a counterpoise to the various 
additions many would like to see in the ‘ Manual,’ most of those who 
use the book might well dispense with the Glossary which occupies 
pp. ix-xxv, and with the table of classes, divisions, and orders, on 
pp. Xxxv—xlv, thus adding twenty-eight pages to the available space. 
It will shorten our task of examining the “carefully revised” 
body of the work to notice the various additions, changes, merits, 
and oversights in botanical order, 7. ¢. as they come; and it may bea 
question whether in future editions it may not be possible, for the 
benefit of those who own earlier editions, to indicate the chief alter- 
ations in the Preface, as did the late Sir Charles Lyell in the various 
editions of his ‘ Principles of Geology.’ Many of the points we 
notice are no doubt trifling, as, for instance, that Clematis, though 
it occurs mostly on calcareous soil, is not absolutely confined to it. 
In the difficult genus Thalictrwm the species 7. saxatile (Bab.), a 
well-marked form, is well placed as a smaller form of 7’. collinum 
(Wallr.), which is itself a variety of 7. majus (Sm.). 
The appearance of the new Guernsey species Ranunculus triphyl- 
los (Wallr.) renews one’s regret at the necessity British botanists 
