183 Bibliography. 



Art. XXII. — Bibliographical Notices. 



1. Enchiridion Botanicum exhihens Classes et Or dines Plantarum, 

 accedit Nomenclator Generum et oJHcinalium vel usualium indicatio ; 

 auctore Stbph. Endlicher, M. D. Botanices in facult. med. Vindob. 

 Prof. Leipsic and Vienna, 1841. pp. 763, 8vo. — This distinguished 

 botanist, having taken the chair in the University of Vienna, so long 

 filled by the late Baron Jacquin, has prepared an excellent text-book, 

 on the same plan as Lindley's Introduction to the Natural System. 

 The author's own arrangement in his Genera Plantarum, is of course 

 followed, and the detailed characters of the classes and orders are 

 taken from that work. A list of the genera, with their subdivisions 

 and principal synonyms, is given under each order ; the affinities of 

 the latter are briefly discussed ; its geographical distribution noticed ; 

 its general properties and uses indicated, followed by a condensed but 

 carefully digested account of all its useful products, and especially 

 those employed in medicine. We know not where so much important 

 information is to be found within such a narrow compass. We observe 

 that Prof. Endlicher, following out his views upon the subject of vege- 

 table impregnation, viz. that the pollen-grains are the veritable ovula, 

 has in this work substituted the term gemnmlcB in place of the latter, 

 and restored the old name of germen for the ovarium ! 



2. Flora Medica ; a Botanical Account of all the more important 

 Plants used in Medicine, in different parts of the world ; by John 

 LiNDLEY, Ph. D. &c. London, 1838. pp. 656, 8vo. — Our notice of 

 this work is somewhat tardy ; but it is probably not yet as well known 

 in this country, at least to the medical profession, as it deserves to 

 be. Its object is to furnish good systematical descriptions of medici- 

 nal plants, including those employed in the popular practice in difler- 

 ent countries, as well as those which have found a place in treatises on 

 materia medica. Not being himself a medical man, the author adopts 

 the motto : " Certa feram certis autoribus ; baud ego vates" — but there 

 is no lack of original investigation in the discussion of numei'ous ques- 

 tions, which must be settled rather by botanical than pharmaceutical 

 inquiry. The arrangement of the author's Introduction to the Natural 

 System, second edition, is followed ; but, in order to suit the conven- 

 ience of those readers v/ho may prefer some other mode, the work is 

 so printed that the different natural orders may be cut asunder and re- 

 aiTanged ; in consequence of which many blank pages are left, and the 

 size and expense of the work are unduly increased. Throughout Europe, 

 we believe, no medical faculty exists without a professorship of botany ; 



