﻿SUPPLEMENT UM PR0DB0MI FLORAE HISPANIOiE. 



157 



Supplementum Prodromi^Flora Hispanica; sive enumeratio et de- 



1893 in Hispania detectarum qua innotuerunt auctori, adjectis 

 locis novis specierum jam notarum auctore Maueitio Willkomm. 

 Stuttgartiffi : E. Koch. 1893. 8vo, pp. ix. 370. 

 The scope of this excellent supplement to one of our standard 

 European floras is sufficiently explained by its title, and we con- 

 gratulate the venerable Professor upon this bringing up to date of 

 the Flora (or 'Prodromus,' as it is modestly styled), which, in union 

 with Prof. Lange, he began in his fortieth year, and concluded in 

 1880. The progress of knowledge, even in the less known European 

 countries, continually renders such supplements necessary: while 

 the workers upon floras of more remote regions have to lament their 

 incompleteness, not only in that a large portion of them has never 

 been published, but because what has been published is already out 

 of date. The regrettable delay of the Flora Capensis and of the 

 Flora of Tropical Africa must result, among other disadvantages, 

 in an utter disproportion between the earlier and later volumes of 

 these works, supposing that they ever reach their termination. 

 We were glad to be able to announce the resumption of the latter 

 work, after an interval of seventeen years, and we hope it will not 

 be long before the Cape Flora, which has lain dormant for nearly 

 twice that period, is again set on foot. Lord Salisbury acted wisely 

 in pointing out, three years since, the serious hindrance to scientific 

 progress caused by these delays, and it is to be hoped that the 

 Conspectus Flora Africa (announced on p. 126) will do something to 

 atone for them. But the discrepancies between the earlier and 

 later instalments of the two books mentioned can at most be but 

 partially remedied by the publication of a supplement bfought up 



Only those who have worked at the Spanish Flora can rightly 

 estimate the utility of Prof. Willkomm's Supplement; but its 

 scientific value is at once apparent to any systematic botanist. In 

 an excellent preface, the author pays a graceful tribute to Spanish 

 observers who have passed away, and enumerates those to whose 

 researches the present work is mainly due — among them "Lacaita, 

 botanicus anglicus, qui anno 1888 partem regni valentini aus- 

 traliorum visitavit." The additions of 1893 are not included, or 

 we should have found an acknowledgment of another English 

 botanist, Mr. A. E. Lomax, who described a new Cerastium in this 

 Journal for 1893 (p. 331). The bibliography is carefully done, and 

 nomenclature is duly attended to, but there is none of that morbid 

 fondness for name- changing which disfigures so many American 

 local floras and some nearer home. Under '< Herniaria ciliata Bab. 

 (1898)," Prof. Willkomm notes: "Nomen mutandum lege priori- 

 tatis in H. maritima Lk. in Schrad. Journ. i. p. 57 (1800) " : but a 

 reference to Schrader does not supply the name cited, which Mr. 

 Jackson attributes to Link on the authority of Nyman's Conspectus; 

 Babington's name dates from 1837, when he published the species 

 in Trans. Linn. Soc. xvii. 458. 



