

NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS, 89 



Our interest is naturally for the most part limited to the 

 botanical portion of the work. Mr. Hemsley is already known as 

 a careful and painstaking botanist; and we therefore looked 

 forward with pleasurable anticipations to his elaboration of the 

 plants of an interesting region. The plan of the work is to follow 

 the classification of Bentham and Hooker's ■ Genera Plantarum ' 

 so far as practicable, the species being arranged under each genus 

 in alphabetical order — an arrangement which may be convenient, 

 but is hardly scientific. Under each species is given the distri- 

 bution through the Central American region, the collectors' 

 numbers being usually quoted, although it is not always to 

 ascertain whether these have actually been seen by the author. 

 Descriptions of the new species — most of which had already been 

 published by Mr. Hemsley in his ! Diagnoses of Mexican Plants p 

 are given, with amended characters of certain plants which had 

 been previously imperfectly described ; while the quarto plates of 

 the more interesting novelties by Mr. W. H. Fitch leave nothing 

 to be desired. 



A few points seem to us to call for criticism. We have already 

 referred to the alphabetical arrangement (which is not always 

 strictly adhered to), and we may add that each species is distin- 

 guished in its genus by a serial number. There seems little 

 advantage in this ; but when we find that a (sometimes large) 

 number of plants have received no specific name, we fail to see 

 any gain in giving these a number. The large proportion of 

 undetermined plants gives a sense of incompleteness to the book ; 

 out of 42 enumerated Abutilons, for example, 12 are unnamed; 

 so are 5 out of the 13 Hineas, 5 out of 12 Clusias, 4 out of 11 

 Zanthoxylons, and 4 out of 5 Alsodeias. Mr. Hemsley is no 

 doubt wise in declining to commit himself to a definite pronounce- 

 ment upon insufficient material ; but why these doubtful plants 

 should each occupy at least two lines, and receive a number, we 

 cannot understand ; nor can we imagine why Mr. Hemsley did not 

 carry further his investigations of the species. Under the genus 

 Bursera he says, p. 177, "Bentham and Hooker unite Idea and 

 Rlaphrium with Bursera; but as the species require revision, we 

 have not ventured to give specific names under Bursera. Doubt- 

 less many of the following numbers belong to the same species." 

 Surely Mr. Hemsley was the proper person to look into this, and to 

 reduce, if necessary, the redundant synonymy ; but instead of this, 

 we have under Bursera 34 numbers ; nos. 1-13 being enumerated 

 as Bursera proper (10 of these being unnamed), nos. 14-16 as 

 "published under Idea" and the remainder as "published under 

 Elaphrium," which statement is hardly true of no. 34, " Elaphrium 

 'toru/osum' in lib. Kew," which does not seem to have been 

 previously published as an Elaphrium, and should, we imagine, 

 have been placed under Bursera. One of the unnamed Burseras 

 (no. 12) is represented by four numbers from as many collectors ; 

 and we should have thought that some determination might have 

 been arrived at upon so much material. To add to the confusion, 

 although all the species are numbered under Bursera, there is a 



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