XXXIV PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



of the interest taken in the study of plants by our wealthy classes; 

 The work comes too near home for me to venture upon any critical 

 remarks as to its merits ; but I may be allowed to express a hope 

 that a greater number of the old dissections upon the plates may 

 be replaced, as some have been, by magnified details more in ac- 

 cordance with the present state of science. In Germany, B-eichen- 

 bach's ' Icones ^Florae Grermanicse et Helveticae ' is being steadily 

 proceeded with. It is now in its twenty-first volume, or thirty -first 

 if the previous ten of 'Plantse Critiese' be included. After this, four 

 more wiU. be required to complete the work, which will then con- 

 tain, for a comparatively moderate price, a more perfect illustra- 

 tion of the flora of the whole of central Europe than has yet been 

 carried out for any extensive region. The dissections in the latter 

 volumes, by the younger Eeichenbach, are particularly good. It 

 may be that the existence of this work is one cause for which 

 France is not even commencing a separate illustrated Flora of 

 her own. 



For the southern States of Europe, I had occasion, in the 

 Natural-History Eeview for October 1864, to report on the 

 state of the Floras of the three great southern Peninsulas ; since 

 when the only addition of any importance has been the appear- 

 ance of the first part of the second volume of Lange and Will- 

 komm's ' Prodromus Florae Hispanicse,' the importance of which 

 I had in the above-mentioned article pointed out. It is with 

 sincere regret that I see, by a notice in the Botanische Zeitung 

 of the present year, p. 116, that the sale of the work has been so 

 far from compensating the outlay, that, unless 50 more subscribers 

 be immediately obtained, the publishers will be compelled to give 

 it up, an appeal to which, it is to be hoped, all zealous students of 

 European botany will cheerfully respond. 



The E-ussians continue active in the investigation of the natural 

 history of their vast territory. In a long list of botanical works 

 and papers recently published by them, which I owe to the kind- 

 ness of Dr. Eegel, there are many, chiefly from the Transactions 

 of the Petersburg Academy, and from the Moscow Bulletin, 

 supplying data for future editions of Ledebour's Flora. Dr. 

 Kegel himself has described the plants of Semeinow and others, 

 and leads us to hope that the general Flora of Eastern Siberia, 

 which he commenced several years since, will now soon be con- 

 tinued. A Flora of Moscow, just published by N. Kaufmann, 

 in the Eussian language, is marked as good, but has not, as far as 

 I am aware, yet reached this cotintry. Several elementary and 



