378 Domestic Notices : — England. 



system of Linnasus, and it may even perhaps be allowable to add, so well 

 satisfied with our own proficiency, that, with the honourable exception of 

 Mr. Brown, there was at that time scarcely a botanist in Britain who took 

 any interest in, or paid the least attention to, the classification by natural orders 

 which had been adopted in France, and to the more minute and accurate ex- 

 amination of plants which was caused by the employment of that philosophical 

 arrangement. Let it not, however, be supposed that the author wishes at all 

 to detract from the value of the Linnsean system — a system which was con- 

 sidered by its author as merely a provisional arrangement, or kind of index to 

 the known plants ; for no botanist has more strongly stated the value of a 

 natural classification than LinnEeus himself, — as he fully believes that without 

 some such artificial scheme by which nev/ly discovered plants could be cata- 

 logued for easy reference, the multitudinous species which distant countries 

 have supplied would long since have formed so enormous and confused a mass 

 as to have reduced botany to a state little better than that into which it had 

 fallen at the commencement of the Linn^an era." 



The work is intended to be a field book or travelling companion for bota- 

 nists, but it has, what we consider a very great deficiency, viz., " synonymes 

 have been almost wholly omitted." It is true that references to figures are 

 given, but that, in our opinion, will not compensate for the want of synonymes, 

 more especially to the travelling botanist ; while, in a historical point of view, 

 it prevents us from connecting the work with other floras of the same kind 

 which have gone before it. In every other respect we like the book much. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 

 Art. I. Domestic Notices. 



ENGLAND. 



The Horticultural Society of London held its first show in tiie Chiswick Gar- 

 den on May 13th : it was as well attended as usual, and the specimens of 

 superior culture, in various instances, surpassed those ever before exhibited. 

 Their arrangement in the tents also was better. See the Gardener's Chronicle 

 of May 20. 



The Royal Botanic Society of London held its first exhibition for the season 

 in its gardens in the Inner Circle, Regent's Park, on the 2'ith of May, when 

 many of the best plants exhibited in the Chiswick Garden were again dis- 

 played. The meeting was well attended, and the progress made in laying out 

 the garden seemed to give general satisfaction. In short this garden, without 

 in the slightest degree interfering with any other, is already affording a very 

 high degree of enjoyment and intellectual entertainment to the families in the 

 neighbourhood. Very great praise is due to the committee of management, 

 and to the curator, Mr. Marnock. 



Waterer^ s Exhibition of American Plants, in the King's Road, has this year, 

 as before, excited general admiration, notwithstanding the gloomy state of the 

 atmosphere. The area in which the plants are planted being covered with 

 canvass suggests the idea that a roof of glass, to be shaded occasionally by 

 canvass, would be better ; and also that covering an acre or two in some spot 

 nearer the centre of London would afford an interesting town garden. It 

 might be furnished with plants from the open ground, so as to form a covered 

 promenade throughout the year ; but we have often before thrown out the 

 idea. Soho Square would make an excellent garden of this sort, but still 

 better Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mr. Waterer deserves very great credit, not only 

 for the immense expense which he incurs annually in getting up this exhibition, 

 but for the great taste which he displays in arranging the plants ; mixing the 



