THE BHITISH FLORA. 
39 
eally. The second genus in Mr. Babington’s Manual, Thalictrum , 
has been much abused. Kegel, who has recently published a valuable 
review of the genus and has excellent opportunity for the comparing 
of the various forms, unites T. jlexuosum , Bernh., and T. saxatile , 
Schleich., which Mr. Babington holds specifically distinct, under the 
same variety (3. virens ) of T. minus, L. The Batrachian Ranunculi 
are in the same predicament, and hardly any of these are identifiable 
without authentic specimens for comparison. Like many other water 
plants the old Ranunculus aquatilis of Linnaeus is extremely variable, 
occurring under many forms and varieties. We however question the 
propriety of uniting with it R. hederaceus , as Mr. Bentham has done, 
who we cannot but think has fallen sometimes, though not often— 
impelled we may fancy by a sort of righteous horror of species- 
making—into the opposite extreme of combining forms which might 
have been reasonably kept distinct. Hooker and Arnott acknowledge, 
in respect to their six Batrachian Ranunculi , that some are maintained 
in deference to the opinion of other botanists and against their own 
verdict. Surely these distinguished and veteran botanists ought to 
have an opinion of their own worth more to them than this. Rumania , 
Sagina, Cerastium, Rosa, Ryrus, Rpilobium, Lepigonum (Spergularia 
of Persoon), Galium, Rilago, Arctium, Hicracium, Statice, Atriplex, 
Polygonum, Juncus, Potamogeton, Sclerochloa (a bad genus), Serra- 
falcus (another), and Triticum, are some of the other variable genera 
in which too many species have evolved themselves through the 
successive editions of Mr. Babington’s book. 
For the convenience of young botanists a dozen or twenty pages 
may be well devoted to a glossary of the terms used in these Floras, 
for it is impossible to dispense with technicalities, except at a sacri¬ 
fice of necessary precision. Prof. Babington, in his last edition of the 
Manual, notwithstanding his introduction of a tolerably good glossary 
of nearly 500 terms, has, we observe, made an attempt to substitute 
ordinary words for technical terms to a great extent, in some cases 
perhaps with advantage, in others unquestionably with disadvantage. 
We note amongst the rest blunt substituted for obtuse, burst for 
dehisce, pitcher-shaped for urceolate, thick for turgid, prominences for 
papillae, netted for reticulate, stripes for vittae. This last is simply 
absurd, as it seems to us. 
But there are redeeming features in the new edition of the Ma¬ 
nual : several important ones. A comparison of the last two editions 
manifests in almost every page the anxious desire of the author to 
render his descriptions as faithful and diagnostic as possible. Great 
pains has been exercised in the revision of these, and the result is 
worth it. The Latin names have been accented as in Hooker and 
Arnott; an addition we would commend to the attention of the 
learned author of the Handbook “ for the use of beginners.” And 
the plan of adding the initial letters of England, Scotland, or Ireland, 
in whichever it may be the plant is found, to each description, has 
been extended. Hooker and Arnott give more detail as to localities. 
