Vr. Hooker on American Botany. 277 



Plants, and a Catalogue of its Species to the year 18)7, hy 

 Thomas Mittall,''^ in 2 vols. l2mo. printed at Philadelphia. 

 Mr. Nuttall is an Englifjhman by birth, and a native of York- 

 shire; but he visited North America at an early age, and is 

 now domiciliated in that country. His love of botany and 

 mineralogy is exceedingly great and a personal asquaintance, 

 which iiis late visit to this country has enabled us lo have the 

 pleasure of forming has only served to increase the esteem 

 and respect which his writinjis had already taught us to enter- 

 tain towards him. For many years previous to the publica- 

 tion of his Flora, the author was engaged in visiting very ex- 

 tensively the territories of the United States, particularly the 

 southern and western ones. " For nearly ten years," he say^ 

 in his preface to his Journal of Travels into the Arkansas 

 ierrilory^ " I have travelled throughout America, principally 

 with a view to becoming acquainted with some favourite 

 branches of natural history. 1 have had no other end in view 

 but personal gratification ; and in this I have not been de- 

 ceived ; for innocent amusement can never leave room for 

 regret. To converse, as it were with nature, to admire the 

 wisdom and beauty of creation, has ever been, and 1 hope 

 ever will be, to me a favourite pursuit; and to communicate 

 to others a poition of the same amusement and gratification 

 has been the only object of my botanical publications.'' 



'J he " Genera of Morth American Plants'^ is entirely in 

 English ; and it appears that it was the design of the writer to 

 have arranged it according to the natural orders. But out of 

 deference to public opinion, in a country where the artificial 

 system of Linnaeus had almost exclusively been studied, Mr. 

 Nuttall adopted that method. He has, however, made a great 

 many valuable remarks upon the natural orders, following 

 several of the genera, and has recommenrled the adoption of 

 some new ones. He has well defined the characters of the 

 order Monolropea, to which he has properly referred the 

 highly curious Pterospora. As, however, the well-known 

 genus Fyrola belongs unquestionably lo the same family, the 

 term Pyrolea jrtight perhaps have been considered as more 

 appropriate. The characters of the genera (which he here 

 extends to 807, exclusive of any cryptogamia,) have, as may 

 be inferred from the title, occupied a greater share of attention 

 from Mr Nuttall. He has added to the essential characters, 

 those taken from the habit of the plant, and he has noticed 

 theirgeographical distribution, in the enijmeration of species, 



