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REVIEWS AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS. 



I. — Icones Plantarum, or Figures with brief descriptive characters 

 and remarks of New or Rare Plants, selected from the Author s 

 Herbarium. By Sir W. J. Hooker, K. H. LL. D. &c. Parts 

 I. and II. 1837- 



This is a valuable publication ; economical, and yet rich in the 

 number and variety of its illustrations ; and we sincerely hope it 

 may receive such a portion of encouragement, as shall constitute it 

 the first of a long series of works got up in a similar style. This 

 " Icones Plantarum" is par excellence a useful work. The plates 

 are executed in lithography, and although in point of beauty they 

 cannot be compared with similar productions by our continental 

 neighbours, they are evidently faithful and characteristic, — requi- 

 sites of far higher importance to the real naturalist than artistic ele- 

 gance of engraving. In regard to subjects, the author has wisely al- 

 lowed himself the widest range ; and we have in the two parts before 

 us, Fungi, Mosses, and Ferns, besides the numerous phaenogamous 

 plants selected on account of their rarity, singularity or beauty.. 



Of the letter-press, it is needless to say— coming as it does from 

 the pen of Sir W. J. Hooker — that it is accurate and scientific. Pro- 

 fessing, however, to be brief, it is in our opinion too much so : brief, 

 we think, rather to the disadvantage of the work. For example, 

 of about sixty new species, (excluding mosses,) considerably more 

 than one-half are unaccompanied by any observation upon specific 

 affinity ; a subject, in these days, of the greatest importance. There 

 is another circumstance also, in connection with the letter-press, which 

 we think it right to notice, and that is, the absence of all characters 

 and descriptions whatever of the fifty-five species of mosses figured 

 on plates xviii-xxiv. It is true, that the reader is informed in a 

 note, that descriptions of these mosses will be found in the Companion 

 to the Botanical Magazine. But there is nothing in the title-page 

 of the " Icones" which can lead the purchaser to expect occasionally 

 figures without descriptions. In the present instance, the possessor 



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