of a Local Flora. 427 



usually transcribed from the general works into the local ones, and 

 the public is thus called on to pay for the same matter over and 

 over again, under different names. Exceptions are of course quite 

 allowable in cases where particular species or varieties have been 

 previously inaccurately or insufficiently described. But if such 

 descriptions and references, as are here objected to, be unneces- 

 sary in a local Flora, and serve only to add much to the cost, with 

 little or no addition to the value of the books, the thrusting in of 

 " Introductions to Botany" is a most inexcusable and absurd way 

 of swelling out a local Flora ; and it is also an injudicious one, since 

 all unnecessary increase of cost must be attended with a correspond- 

 ing decrease of sale. And still more absurd is it, for authors to re- 

 peat the generic and specific characters twice over, in order to pre- 

 sent two arrangements, the Linnean and Jussieuan ; as if a mere 

 list of the genera were not amply sufficient to meet such an object ! 

 Thirdly, we should desire to see the degree of scarcity or abundance 

 of each species mentioned, in as close an accordance as possible with 

 some fixed scale. The scarcity or abundance of the species, in the 

 tract under consideration , is what any reader would reasonably ex- 

 pect to be intended, when a local author speaks of a plant being 

 " rare" or " common." Yet it is unfortunately true, that these and 

 other such adjectives, in different instances, are copied from the 

 general Floras, and applied to the species of a local tract in direct 

 contradiction to what is the fact there. Fourthly, the time of flower- 

 ing, and the soil and situation affected by each species, should be 

 given from actual observation. Had we not indisputable proofs 

 that the notices of these points were frequently copied from the ge- 

 neral Floras, we might have felt disposed to doubt that writers could 

 be guilty of the slovenly, not to say dishonest, practice of copying 

 local particulars, from works not exclusively (or not at all !) refer- 

 ring to the area to which such copied particulars are applied ; yet 

 this is done without qualification or acknowledgment. Such a 

 course can scarcely fail of leading the copyists to put forth their own 

 blundering misapplications as actual facts, and of misleading others 

 where the blunders are less glaringly apparent. What can be more 

 unmeaning, or more deceptive, than such indications as " on many 

 moors in the north" occurring in a Flora relating to a tract in the 

 south of England ; or, " frequent on mountains" given as the situa- 

 tion of a species found very locally in a tract quite destitute of 

 mountains ; or, " chiefly on a chalky soil," for the place of growth 

 of another species, in a county without a yard of chalk through its 

 whole extent! Such errors as these, however, do exist in some works, 



