I. PHYTO- GEOGRAPHY. 375 



above quoted from the Review, in explanatory amiilifica- 

 tion of De Candolle's book and chapter titles, is presumed 

 to have emanated from the same pen with the latest 

 * Handbook of the British Flora,' referred to on page 378 

 of this volume. By way of a curious contrast, the sub- 

 joined passage is here copied from the 'Introduction' to 

 another ' Handbook of the British Flora,' which preceded 

 that of Mr. Bentham by some few months : — 



" With due deference to the opinions of other botanists, 

 whose knowledge of j)lants and their distribution is pro- 

 found, and to whose writings all students of botany are 

 under heavy obligations, it is here submitted that the 

 only fact worth knowing, respecting the occurrence of any 

 plant in any given or assumed locality, is whether the 

 plant is likely to be permanent in that station, or in its 

 close vicinity." (Irvine's Handbook, page 106.) 



These two passages present the large and the little 

 views of phyto-geographical science in amusing contrast ; 

 the little view contracted into the extreme of littleness. 

 It is the writer's own affair to reconcile the inconsistency 

 of that latter opinion, when found among forty pages of 

 compiled matter on the " geography of plants," prefixed 

 to a descriptive Flora. But after the open avowal of an 

 opinion so strange, it will not be deemed at all strange 

 that his forty pages on the subject are nowise remarkable 

 for lucidity or accuracy. Indeed, Mr. Irvine appears 

 imperfectly to apprehend the true bearings and purpose 

 of phyto-geograj)hical investigations. 



For minds of larger and clearer views, it may bo 

 remarked in returning from the short digi-ession, that the 

 ultimate objects to be sought by phyto-geographical 

 investigations, are neither the countries of plants nor the 

 plants of countries. These inquiries are only, the preli- 

 minary efforts towards ascertaining the necessary relations 



