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BOOK NOTICES. 

 'The Student's Flora of the British Islands/— By Sir j. D. 



Hooker; Third Edition (Macmillan & Co., 1884), pp. xxiii and 563. Price 

 los. 6d. 



This new edition is not only larger by fifty pages than the last, but bears the 

 marks of thorough revision, and generally of improvement, on almost every page ; 

 making it an indispensable accompaniment to Babington's Manual, 8th Edition, for 

 the field botanist and student of plant-distribution. In spite of its bulk, by the use 

 of small type and thin paper (globe 8vo. in size), it is still not too large to slip con- 

 veniently into the side-pocket. More information of all sorts concerning British 

 Plants, in such a small compass — from the pronunciation and derivation of generic 

 names, to the range and distribution of species — it would be impossible to find. 

 The whole work has in classification been adapted to Geizera Plantarum, and 

 collated with Nyman's recent Conspechts Fierce EtcropcEce, and Topographical 

 Botany, 2nd Edition, so that the work has in verity been brought up to our 

 knowledge at the beginning of 1884. This, however, is not an altogether unmixed 

 advantage. It takes time for our views of newly-discovered forms to gradually 

 crystallize down into undebatable truths as knowledge of them grows. The dis- 

 advantage alluded to is particularly evidenced in the Naiadaceae of the work before 

 us, where the 21 ^species' of Potamogeton defined are anything but equivalent in 

 value. The prominence elsewhere given to ' sub-species ' is somewhat departed 

 from, P. polygonifolius Pourr. following P. natans L. as an equally distinct integer; 

 whilst P. Zizii Roth., which bears a somewhat similar relation to P. htcens L. 

 that P. polygonifolius Pourr. does to P. natans L,, is reduced (we do not contend 

 wrongly) to sub-specific rank. Potamogeton Griffithii K. Benn., again — a recently 

 discovered plant of the Welsh lakes, which has not yet been observed with mature 

 fruit, and of which, with our present knowledge, it would not be too strong an 

 assertion to declare a probably attenuated state of prcelongzis, — is lined as an 

 undoubtedly distinct species, without a hint even that its specific value is as yet in 

 the debatable ground of controversy. An opposite case to this, showing how 

 views of ' species ' gradually mature, is to be seen under P. pusilhis L. , where 

 P. mitcronatus Schrad. (long accounted a distinct species, and so given in Bab. 

 Man. , 8), is rightly reduced to sub-specific rank, as a broader-leaved race of P. 

 pusillus, under the title of P. Friesii Rupp. 



It will thus be seen that where the author has availed himself of the service of 

 specialists, and allowed them the revision of his MS., the execution is unequal, and 

 a certain clashing of views (inconsistent with one another) has been inevitable. 

 Excluding the debatable groups, such as the Batrachiiim section of Ranunculus, 

 we have nothing but approval to accord to the most masterly way in which the 

 not narrow range of British forms are treated. As one would expect from the 

 world-wide extent of the author's knowledge, in his limitation of species he has 

 wisely adhered rather to broad, evident, and structural differences for his characters, 

 than to those finer distinctions (often comparative ones, and liable to vary) in 

 which the 'splitter' so much delights. As he himself remarks (p. 5), in reference 

 to the aquatic Ranunculi, Rosa, R'ubus, &c., ' Of the characters attributed to these 

 and their subordinate forms by critical authors, I find some variable, others valueless, 

 and still others deceptive.' In the Roses and Hieracia, however, the matured 

 experience of Mr. J. G. Baker has given a consistency to the limitation of forms 

 (which are lucidly defined, however artificial their characters) not observable in 

 the Potamogetons or the Willows. In the arrangement of the latter, Anderson and 

 Boswell (olim Syme) have been followed, we are told ; with a novelty in the 

 result — chaotic in appearance, although perhaps none the less truly mirroring 

 Nature for that — that makes this synopsis especially invaluable as a companion to 

 that in Babington's Manual, 8th Edition, for the lights which its contrasts throw 

 upon this puzzling genus. Babington defines 30 species. Hooker 18; the latter 

 boldly but, as we have long thought, warrantably suppressing Salices Russelliana, 

 ambigua, Smithiana, stipularis, and rubra, as all hybrids. 



A few minor omissions, such as the paucity of information given here and there 

 in regard to the derivation of botanic names, does not detract appreciably from the 

 value of the book. What we have is accurate, but we find ' Etymology doubtful ' in 



Oct. 1884. 



