186 EXTRACTS AND NOTICES. 
last-named botanist is the author of this the second and concluding 
volume, assisted in some families by ‘“ specialists of the highest 
authority in their several Repaniaisieet The ‘Flora of British 
*India’ is the latest and most flourishing of the series of colonial 
floras which have been subsidised by British or colonial govern- 
ments, and which owe their existence and toa great extent their 
sears to the energy of oe Joseph Hooker and his colleagues 
at Kew. We say ‘‘ the most flourishing,” because the progress of 
some of these floras has unfortunately been arrested. The last 
volume of the ‘ Flora Capensis,’ for example, bears date 1864-1865, 
the Campanulacea being the last stanaily described; the ‘ Flora of 
Tropical Africa’ came to a standstill in 1877 with the Hbenacee ; 
but the ‘Flora of British India,’ commenced in 1872, is steadily 
progressing, this progress being i in no small degree owing to the 
eee co-operation of Mr. C. B. 
‘Botany of California’ is a most attractive book ; both 
paper and type te to us as good as it is possible to procure, and 
the = of the various groups leave nothing to be desired. 
Dr. Engelmann has undertaken the Loranthacee and Abietinea, as 
well as the genus Quercus; Mr. Bebb has elaborated the Salices ; 
the Carices have been entrusted to Mr. William Boott (son, we 
believe, of the eminent caricologist), the Coe to Dr. Thurber, 
and the Ferns to Prof. Eaton; the bulk of the work thus falling 
upon Dr. Sereno Watson, who is second only to Prof. Asa Gray in 
his devotedness to North American Botany, The greatest care is 
manifested upon every page, and nowhere perhaps more promi- 
nently than in the Index, which i model of what such things 
. There is an Appendix ee of a good glossary and — 
an extremely interesting “‘ List of persons who have made botanical 
collections in California,” by Mr. Brewer; this title, however, 
hardly adequately conveys to the general reader how much infor- 
mation regarding those to whom we are mainly indebted for our 
Dpatiesige of Californian fuer. is given in this condensed account 
m the t enke, who collected in California in 1791, 
Fe tiga to ne ame date. 
A of this kind is, of course, hardly suited for detailed 
ans in these pages; but there are one or two points to which 
we would call attention. We note we pleasure that Dr. Watson, 
whom we have not previously encountered as a brycologist, names 
mosses on the principles silently adopted by phanerogamic 
botanists, but too often departed from by eryptogamists; so that 
we have only one authority for’a given name, instead of two 
the other hand, we notice that such rene names as californica, 
lapponica, and the like are spelt with capital letters, which seems 
to us an undesirable innovation upon the recognised practice. In 
e new species here described, and this may 
possibly mislead those who do not remember that the work is not 
om one pen. Care must be taken to quote Mr. Boott’s new 
