Dr Lauder Lindsay on the Flora of Iceland. 75 
it because the scheme or principle of its compilation—Mr Ben- 
tham’s views of the relative position of species and varieties 
—seem to be more philosophical than those of any other simt- 
lar manual with which I am acquainted. I regret that the 
same judicious principles of classification have not yet been 
more widely extended; but I have every hope that they 
will be so. It follows from the use of this work, however, 
that my list of Icelandic Phanerogams is greatly less than if 
I had followed such a manual as Babington’s, in which 
the number both of species and varieties is greater. It 
is also necessarily less than the older Icelandic Floras, in 
which varieties were not unfrequently recorded as species. 
But further, inasmuch as the works, according to which the 
other groups or families of plants in my list have been named 
and arranged, are not compiled on the same plan as Bentham’s 
*‘ Handbook,” or, in other words, contain proportionally a 
larger number of species and varieties, my list does not 
exhibit a strictly accurate numerical proportion or relation 
between the Phanerogams and Cryptogams, or between the 
different families of either. In other words, it may appear to 
some botanists that the number of species of Phanerogams 
is comparatively meagre, while that of the Cryptogams is 
comparatively full. Nor do I see how this can be avoided, 
even had another manual than Bentham’s been used in naming 
the majority of the Phanerogams. Uniformity could be attained 
only if the Phanerogams and Cryptogams were both named 
from a work written on the same plan by one author, on 
whom reliance could be placed. But this is, under the circum 
stances, impossible. Any statistics, therefore, based on my 
list must necessarily lead pro tanto to false conclusions; and 
I neither place any fixed value upon such statistics or con- 
clusions myself, nor do I recommend others to do so. 
Such of the Phanerogams, Ferns, and their allies as are not 
British have been mostly named and arranged according to 
Hartman’s “ Handbok i Skandinaviens Flora”? (Stockholm, 
1854, 6th ed.) The Mosses are named and arranged accord- 
ing to Wilson’s “ Bryologia Britannica” (1855), such as 
are British; and the others according to Hartman’s work 
above mentioned. The Hepatice are according chiefly to 
