BOOK BEOOBDS. 603 



to wildness, &c. In most of our Local Floras there is a dis- 

 creditably large portion of the recorded localities, even disputable 

 localities, which have never been examined by the -writers of the 

 Floras. "Why should a botanist deem himself qualified to write 

 the Flora of a whole county because he has examined half a 

 dozen of its parishes ? 



Perhaps the unpretending B'lora of Reigate, by the late George 

 Luxford, is the one which ought to stand at the head of aU, 

 when the test of superiority is made to rest on real research and 

 rehability. There appears no reason to question the truth of his 

 own account of his book, as given in these words: — "I have 

 endeavoured to render the work a guide to the localities of the 

 plants growing in the localities of which it treats ; and the only 

 merit it can claim is that of being a faithful record of my own 

 researches in the neighbourhood of Eeigate. So that however 

 trifling it may be considered in a scientific point of view, I trust 

 a certain value will attach to it, as being, — not a mere compila- 

 tion from the labours of others, — but the result of actual observation. 

 I believe I have not admitted a single plant which I have not 

 seen growing in the recorded localities, with the exception of the 

 very few collected by friends of undoubted veracity, whose names 

 are invariably given as authorities. I possess specimens of aU 

 the plants so collected ; and have, whenever it was practicable, 

 verified the observations of my friends." 



The internal evidence afforded by the book itself appears fully 

 to accord with and warrant Mr. Luxford's own description of the 

 work. And it is noteworthy that most of the few (really few) 

 exceptions alluded to, are plants which ought not to have been 

 admitted into the work at all. How gladly would I have burnt 

 every other Local Flora in the list — good, as some of them are, 

 after their own fashion, — if their places could have been supplied 

 by as many others written on the same faithfully simple plan as 

 this Flora of Reigate. Perhaps the nearest resemblance to it may 

 be found in the checked Catalogues so much quoted in the county 

 lists of this. work. But these catalogues cannot be declared 



