168 Revieios. [Jan., 



BRITISH AND GARDEN BOTANY.* 



Mr. Leo H. Grtndon, Lecturer on Botany in Manchester, has pub- 

 lished a work on this subject, containing descriptions of the flowering 

 plants, ferns, and trees indigenous in Great Britain, with notices of all 

 plants commonly cultivated in this country for use and ornament. 

 The work is intended to be popular, and it is prefaced by a brief in- 

 troduction to the study of Botany. The author takes credit to him- 

 self for having published a work superior to all others as regards the 

 intelligible way in which the natural orders are described, and as re- 

 gards the excellence of the Key for finding out the particular families, 

 genera, and species of plants. In place of sounding forth his. own 

 praise, and contrasting his own work with others, we think that the 

 author would have acted more judiciously if he had followed Solo- 

 mon's rule — " Let another man praise them, and not their own mouth ; 

 a stranger, and not their own lips." He thinks the Key in his own 

 work superior to those given by Babington and Bentham, because 

 among other things it does not require the ripe fruit to determine the 

 plant ; the learner he says can find out the name of the plant while it 

 is in flower. We do not know that he has completely succeeded in 

 this, and in some cases he has actually had recourse to the ripe fruit 

 as part of the characters in the Key. Moreover we are doubtful 

 whether the fruit is not in many cases absolutely essential to deter- 

 mine the plant with accuracy, or at all events with scientific pre- 

 cision. Mr. Grindon probably thinks that for popular works such 

 minute accuracy is not required. The author states that his desire is 

 " to introduce the lover of plants by the easiest and pleasantest path, 

 to an intimate knowledge of everything growing wild in the field and 

 woods, upon the shores, in the streams, and on the mountains of our 

 native islands, and to give along with this some few particulars 

 respecting such flowers and trees cidtivated in gardens, shrubberies, 

 and greenhouses, as are frequent and likely to attract attention." No 

 generic characters are given, because the author says, " Genera can only 

 be learned from the contemplation of many species of a genus, and as 

 a very large number of British genera contain only one native species 

 each, there is nothing for the student to compare and collate." We are 

 disposed to think that the study of genera is far more important than 

 that of species, and we would rather see our young students attending 

 primarily to orders and genera than entering into the minutiae of spe- 

 cific distinctions, more especially as given in some works of the pre- 

 sent day. There can be no doubt that some have expressed a desire 

 for a book which would treat of the common garden plants as well as 

 of the native ones, and to a certain extent this work is meant to supply 

 the desideratum. It is a combination of what is found in other intro- 

 ductions to Botany with a British flora. We are disposed to think 

 that the two are best separate, and that the bulk of the present work 

 will prevent it from being used as a field-book. The great use of 



* 'British and Garden Botany.' By Leo H. Grindon, Lecturer on Botany in 

 the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester. London : Routledgc. 



