Literary Notices, 289 



iVcirpus //oloschoe'nus is lost from Braunton Burrows is unfounded, as we 

 have abundance of specimens from that spot, gathered three or four years 

 ago. They will also find Tehcrium iScordium in a very peculiar situation, 

 growing in wet sand, whereas it is usually a fen plant. 



As we delight in local Floi^asy we should be very ungrateful to quarrel 

 with authors who have indulged our fancy ; yet we doubt the expediency of 

 making their work so bulky and expensive, and should have been better 

 satisfied if they had given us a list of species with their localities, and such 

 new information as their diligence had enabled them to collect, and had not 

 repeated twice over the generic and specific characters of the flowering 

 plants for the sake of presenting the reader with both the Linnean and 

 natural arrangement. A list of genera would have answered every purpose. 

 One of the chief objects at which scientific writers should aim, is to make 

 science cheap and accessible to all. We wish, too, that the authors had con- 

 sulted the latest authorities on their subject ; but we do not observe a single 

 reference to Sir James Smith's English FlorUy a work of indisputable merit, 

 and on the question of species of the first authority. If his new views had 

 been rejected, after due examination, we should have no right to complain, 

 but they ought not to have been overlooked. The cryptogamic part is done 

 with more care. 



After all, the work before us will be found useful to such persons as are 

 residents within the county, and to those who are induced to visit " De- 

 von's myrtle vales," from curiosity, or in search of the inestimable blessing 

 of health. The faults are not such as are of great importance to the 

 learner; and the experienced botanist will have access to more general 

 works to supply the deficiencies. — CCJ" 



Art. II. Literary Notices. 



LiNDLEY and Hutton's Fossil Flora of Great Britain. — I rejoice to see 

 a Fossil Flora announced by two such scientific gentlemen as Professor 

 Lindley and Mr. Hutton. The well known botanic accuracy of the former 

 will distinguish by the few remaining characters the fossils possess, whether 

 their complete identity yet exists or not. This is a work which the mere 

 English botanist would be incompetent to grapple with ; for the entire 

 Flora of the older formations consists in scitamineous plants, ferns, and 

 paims, cacti, &c., the resemblances of which at present are only found 

 within the tropics, although every coal measure in Europe abounds with 

 similar specimens. The nearest resemblance to the present vegetables of 

 England exists in the more recent formation of the London clay. In this 

 stratum, at least, races of plants similar to those of Europe and North 

 America are abundant, which is sufficiently obvious in glancing over the 

 acorns and nuts that have been so plentifully procured from the Isle of 

 Sheppy ; yet even here some tropical remains are found, although more 

 scantily. In the fossils of Colebrook Dale, syngenesious plants, mixed with 

 the grasses, appear to be particularly abundant. The union of Mr. Hutton, 

 of geological repute, with Mr. Lindley is a happy circumstance, and, I 

 doubt not, a work of great utility to future geological enquiries will be the 

 result. I trust that it will be published consecutively, beginning either 

 with the more recent or primitive assemblages, a method that will imme- 

 diately render the very first part of general utility ; a plan much more readily 

 accomplished in fossil than in recent botany. — W. Masters. Canterburi/, 

 Januarj/, 1830. 



A Geological Flor^a of Europe is in contemplation by some French and 

 German botanists, in which the plants will be classed according to the rocks 

 and soils believed to be most congenial to them. — B. Paris, March 1830. 



