386 71. AMKNTIFER.E. 



mind shall take up the book-damaged genus, with a deter- 

 mination to scrutinize closely the subdivisions of former 

 writers, to investigate the species afresh in their native ha- 

 bitats, and to recognize no species as real and settled 

 without careful examination of an ample series of speci- 

 mens from diflFerent places of growth. But this can 

 scarcely be ; for a mind of sufficiently philosophic cha- 

 racter would naturally seek higher objects than the de- 

 scriptions of technical botany, on which to employ its 

 powers and energy. 



Taking the genus as it now appears in our descriptive 

 Floras, T should have preferred to treat the distribution of 

 each quasi-species by itself; and thus to have enabled any 

 other botanist to make the combinations which he might 

 think fit. Unfortunately, great difficulties present them- 

 selves in the way of this procedure at present, by the ex- 

 treme paucity of the data respecting the localities, altitudes, 

 &c., of several of the supposed species; and by the nume- 

 rous misapplications of names in books and herbaria, 

 which render many of the existing data about other du- 

 bious species false in fact, and therefore something worse 

 than no data at all. T have consequently decided to ad- 

 here to the arrangement of the Rev. J. E. Leefe, in the 

 London Catalogue of British Plants, keeping together all 

 the sub-species and varieties which have been placed un- 

 der a single No. by that well-known author of the Salictum 

 Britannicum. In the next volume of the Cybele I may 

 hope to introduce such a tabular list as will suffice to show 

 generally the area and distribution of each subordinate 

 form, whether species or variety. For example, in Mr. 

 Leefe's series here adopted, " 1010. Salix cinerea, Linn.'''' 

 is entered as one species, including the three subordinate 

 species, ' cinerea,' ' aquatica,' ' oleifolia,' of Smith and 

 others ; and the formula is consequently filled up by fi- 



