Mr. Winch 1 's Observations on his Flora. 148 



The sub-alpine glens which descend from our moors are the true lo- 

 calities of several of the rare Willows with broad leaves, and it is in 

 such places they should be studied, rather than in Botanic Gardens, 

 where their habits become materially altered by cultivation. 



With the aid of the excellent works of Drs. Hooker and Taylor, and 

 the assistance of the microscope, the botanic student will be enabled to 

 master the numerous species of Mosses and Jungermannia?, these minute 

 vegetables, aptly denominated the watch-work of nature, seldom de- 

 viating into varieties, or appearing to pass into each other ; but it will 

 require glasses of higher magnifying powers, and the exercise of more 

 patient attention, to arrive at a competent knowledge of the Algce and 

 minute Fungi described in the elaborate publications of Dr. G reville ; 

 but, that this abstruse department of the science may be acquired even 

 by persons whose time and attention are otherwise greatly occupied in 

 professional pursuits, is evinced in the Flora of Berwick, a publication 

 so highly creditable to one of our associates, Dr. George Johnston. 

 Yet, notwithstanding these helps, the cryptogamic Botanist is still 

 obliged to look to the continental writers for assistance, and must possess 

 a part, at least, of the works of Acharius, Persoon, Agardh, and 

 De Candolle. Probably, the Botanicon Gallicum of De Candolle, 

 in which a considerable proportion of the plants described by the be- 

 fore-named authors are comprised, will be found most useful, the 

 climate of a large part of France differing not widely from our own. 

 Link, Lyngby, and Fries are the present guides among the most 

 minute of Nature's vegetable productions, whose very genera are almost 

 as unsettled as the sands on the sea shore. 



Sowerby's excellent delineations of the Lichens in the English Botany 

 have materially facilitated the study of these intricate families, and 

 their arrangement by Acharius is probably as good a one, for mere 

 practice, as could be adopted. Yet many individuals of these obscure 

 tribes are to be found enumerated in his pages, not only as distinct spe- 

 cies, but as belonging to more than one genus. This is owing in a great 

 measure to the altered and degenerate state in which many appear when 

 growing out of their natural localities, but more particularly to the slow 

 mode of increase common to many of the crustaceous species. I have 



