THiS VICTORIAN NATUUALlsT. 



179 



REVIEW. 



We have received advance proofs of the greater part of Baron 

 von Mueller's " Key to the System of Victorian Plants," Part I., 

 undertaken at the instance of the Field Naturalists' Club, and 

 especially on the suggestion of the Hon. Dr. Dobson. 



It will be remembered that Part II. of the Key was published 

 rather more than two years ago. With the portion of Part I. 

 already in print, it is possible to arrive at a tolerably complete 

 idea of the nature, scope, and quality of the work. The con- 

 clusion we have come to is that the members of the Field 

 Naturalists' Club, and workers in Victorian botany in general, 

 have acquired a working "flora" of the colony of exceptional value. 



Part 1. commences with the essential feature of the book — the 

 gradual differentiation of the plant forms in successive dichoto- 

 mies. These are given under four chief headings. First, there 

 are the main divisions ; secondly, the dichotomies of the orders ; 

 thirdly, those of the genera ; and, fourthly, those of the species. 

 The dichotomous method is faithfully adhered to throughout. 

 But we are not left to bare alternatives, so that a correct 

 diagnosis of the order, genus, or species we are inquiring about 

 does not merely and solely depend upon our having always taken 

 the right turn at each of the many points at which the road forks. 

 Two important checks are provided. Each order, genus, or species 

 has, when reached by the prescribedmethod,ashort,pithydiagnosis 

 appended in a smaller type. And by a triumph of art, which 

 could only have been achieved by a master in botany, the artificial 

 differentiations have been made to follow so closely the lines of 

 the natural differentiations that allied orders appear, as in an 

 ordinary flora, side by side, and so with allied genera and allied 

 species. We have not detected an instance in which the 

 -exigencies of the system have forced a plant to an unnatural 

 distance from its congeners. 



In nature we have variation of the freest, and plants were 

 not created for genera, but genera for plants ; so that 

 when a natural group is characterised by an assemblage 

 of features, it is often found that all members of the 

 .group do not possess all the features, but that all possess most 

 of the features. It often happens then that not a single feature 

 ■of importance is actually found in all the members. In any 

 method of classification there will be, in consequence, excep- 

 tions in the larger groups. These are indicated in the Key in 

 the early stages, and the reader put on his guard accordingly. 



Some o! the natural orders are represented in Victoria only 

 by aberrant forms, e.g., the Lauracece (with only Cassytha, a 

 twining genus), the Anonacece (with only perigynous forms), etc. 

 The key separates such orders by natural distinctions of world- 

 wide application, but gives the clue to the local representatives 



