172 Miscellanies. 



volve ; but since it cannot be expected from that quarter, we are glad 

 it has been undertaken, and we may almost say completed, by so 

 learned and careful a botanist as Dr. Endlicher. The only fault we 

 have to notice is, that there is no mode of distinguishing directly the 

 generic characters which are compiled altogether from preceding 

 authoi's, from those drawn from the plants themselves. An author 

 can only be considered responsible for the latter ; yet unless there 

 be some means of distinguishing those which have been verified from 

 the remainder, he becomes somewhat implicated in the mistakes of 

 his predecessors. Dr. Endlicher being scarcely less distinguished as 

 a classical scholar than as a botanist, this work is a perfect model of 

 classical style. 



Simultaneously with this work, which it is in part intended to illus- 

 trate, "the author is publishing an Iconogra-phia Generum Plantarum. 

 It appears in quarto parts, with about twelve uncolored plates in each, 

 executed in a very superior manner, with full analyses, which leave 

 nothing to be desired in this respect. Seven or eight parts are already 

 published. It is the cheapest illustrated work of the kind with which 

 we are acquainted, and at the same time one of the very best. 



3. Hooker, Flora Boreali- Americana, or the Botany of the North- 

 ern parts of British America, ^-c, part XI, 1839. {^London.) — The 

 eleventh part of this work has just reached us ; and as the twelfth 

 and concluding portion may soon be expected, we hope to give in the 

 follovs^ing number of this Journal a more particular notice of Sir Wm. 

 Hooker's most important and extensive labors in North American 

 botany. For the present, we may merely state that the eleventh fasci- 

 culus comprises the Orchideous, and the Irideous and Cyperaceous 

 plants, and a portion of the Grasses. Beautiful figures are given of 

 Platanthera ohtusata, P. orbiculata, and P. rotundifolia ; also of a 

 true Epipactis! from Oregon, (and we believe there is another in 

 Texas,) of Spiranthes gracilis, S. decipiens, (a new species with 

 just the habit of Goodyera pubescens,) Listera convallarioides, (the 

 true one,) Cypripedium passerinum, and of twelve mostly new Ca- 

 rices. The account of the genus Carex is by Dr. Boott, who enu- 

 merates one hundred and fifty-eight species as natives of British Amer- 

 ica, (including Oregon, quite to the border of California,) of which 

 nineteen are described as new. 



4. HooTier and Arnott, the Botany of Capt, Beechey^s Voyage, <^c. 

 Part IX, 1840. (London.) — This work has extended to four hundred 

 and thirty-two quarto pages, and another fasciculus will perhaps com- 

 plete the work, but of this we are uncertain. The number of plates 



