REVIEWS. 347 



of application — and this view we are, from long experience of both 

 methods, prepared to sustain, although we are far from thinking these 

 sections really natural or likely to express the ideas of botanists after 

 some years of further investigation and study. But Lindley's sub- 

 classes have the great additional merit of being connected with his 

 system of alliances, a set of more extended orders, which he has 

 worked out with great labour and skill, and with such success that, 

 notwithstanding the occurrence of what may appear to many botanists 

 errors or serious difficulties, the advantage gained both in increased 

 knowledge of the relations of plants, and in facility of examination, is 

 too great to be neglected by any who have once appreciated it. Another 

 great merit of Lindley's system is found in the nomenclature. He 

 names all the orders from a genus assumed as a type by an adjective 

 terminating in acecB, leaving the other forms of Latin adjectives to 

 express other degrees of affinity, and he names the alliances on the 

 same principle by typical names terminating in ales, so that, instead of 

 the confusion arising from miscellaneous terminations only chosen by 

 the ear, or copied from the older authorities, we have a regular plan 

 which is at once comprehended by the student and is an important aid 

 both to his understanding and his memory. We cannot say that our 

 taste is very indulgent to Dr. Lindley's English family names, but 

 they are perhaps as good as any, and are really of little importance 

 since a science cannot exist without scientific terms to express its 

 teachings, which ought to take the form of a language common to 

 the whole civilized world, and leading to no jealousies among the 

 scientific labourers of various nations, and those to whom a Latin 

 termination is a serious obstacle will never render much service to 

 science, or derive much pleasure from it. On the whole, without 

 attaching to it undue importance, and acknowledging that the natural 

 grouping of plants between the sub-kingdoms (as we would call the 

 three great well established divisions) and the so-called orders is as 

 yet in its infancy, we recommend Lindley's method, given in a book 

 which is indispensable to all botanists, as practically the best and the 

 most desirable for application to local Florae. 



The Botanical collections of the University of Toronto, including 

 above 8,000 species, are being arranged according to this plan, which 

 is also taught in the classes of University College, and has thus be- 

 come familiar to many zealous young botanists in Western Canada, 

 and an important service would be rendered by any one who could 



