of a Local Mora. 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 !) Defer- 
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 caju be more 
unmeaning, or more deceptive, than suda indications as " on juany 
moors in the north" occurring in a Flora relating to a tract ia the 
south of England ; or, " frequent on mountains" given as the situa- 
tion of a species found very locally iii 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, 
