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THE YOUNG NATURALIST, 



REVIEW. 



THE LONDON CATALOGUE OF BRITISH PLANTS 



(Eighth Edition.) 



To the botanist, whether amateur or professional, the mere collector of 

 specimens or the earnest student of our indigenous flora, there is no more 

 indispensable hand-book than " The London Catalogue of British Plants." 

 The aim and scope of the work as set forth on the title-page, makes it adapted 

 for marking desiderata, for making exchange betwixt collectors, and for furnish- 

 ing a guide as to the comparative rarity of species. In working up a list of 

 plants occuring in a local district, or as an index to a herbarium, it is invalu- 

 able, and should be in the hands of everyone who studies accuracy in the 

 arrangement of their collections. Although to the outsider it seems a mere 

 list of names, crankey and jaw-breaking in the extreme, followed by certain 

 cabalistic figures, yet to the initiated it is brimful of interest and instruction. 

 Comparing the present with the last (Seventh) Edition, one is struck with the 

 enormous apparent increase in the number of plants, the total being raised 

 from 1680 to 1858, a leap of 178 in twelve years, makes one stare and almost 

 lose faith in evolution, and think that some special creation has been at work. 

 But, when the figures are analysed, it seems that flora has not been quite so 

 fruitful, nor the earth born such a multitudinous progeny. In the old edition 

 there were nearly 100 species printed in an appendix, as aliens, casuals, &c, 

 and as having no legitimate claim to be included in a list of British plants. 

 But now some 65 of these are printed in the body of the work, as having by 

 long residence established their claim to Naturalisation. Then the vexed 

 question as to what constitutes a species, and what should only be regarded 

 as a variety, has been liberally dealt with in the present issue, and a goodly 

 number of what were formerly printed as varieties are now raised to the rank 

 of species, and have a number to themselves. But after both these elements 

 are removed, there is still evidence of an immense amount of hard work done 

 by field botanists, which shows the impetus given to this branch of science in 

 recent years. With such a circumscribed area, already so well explored it 

 was not to be expected that many absolutely new plants should be discovered. 

 And where new species have been met with, it has not usually been in 

 sequestered nooks, "wasting their sweetness on the desert air" where they 

 had been overlooked — unseen by prying botanists of former generations ; but 

 they have been found in the untrodden paths of botanic lore, amongst the 

 obscure and neglected orders such as the Potamogetons and CAaras, or else 

 the variable and critical genera like Rubus or Hier actum. But it is in the 

 records of the general distribution of native flora, that there is evidence of 



