31 
III. —Gexera Plaxtaritm ad Exemplaria imprimis ix IIeebaeiis 
Kewexsibtts seeyata deeixita; anctoribus G. Bentham et 
J. D. Hooker. Vol. I. pars 1. 1862. 
Sixce the publication of Endlicher’s 4 Genera Plantarum,’ now 
above twenty years ago, no work of systematic botany equal in im¬ 
portance to this, of which we now welcome the first instalment, has 
appeared. Matters of late years have been growing absolutely des¬ 
perate in this department of the science ; a perfect chaos has been 
impending, and working botanists may well thank their stars for the 
dawning deliverance. Endlicher, though his book has many faults, 
did his work excellently well, all things considered; but since his 
time genera have been described as new at an amazing rate, particu¬ 
larly of late years, and as few or none keep interleaved copies of 
the old book to post these up as described, things have grown to 
such a pass that no one can safely tell what is new and what is 
old; generic synonymy is frightfully involved, and, hardened by cir¬ 
cumstances, describers are emboldened to publish ‘new’ genera 
with infinitesimal chances of their being truly such. To give an ex¬ 
ample of this rapid increase of genera, reminding one of our col¬ 
league Mr. Currey’s favourite Eungi—we count in the Bibliography 
of last year no fewer than 90 described as new, while in the pre¬ 
vious year there were 123. Our authors themselves describe 47, 
almost all founded on specimens in the Kew Herbarium, encountered 
in the course of their reference to this collection, which has furnished 
the material basis for much that is valuable in their work, as indi¬ 
cated by their title-page; all the genera, of which specimens were 
there accessible to them, have been independently examined and en¬ 
dorsed. £ Characteres genericos saepius ad exemplaria specierum 
plurium confirmavimus,’ we find in their brief £ Prsemonenda.’ 
The new £ Genera Plantarum ’ differs in many respects from that 
of Endlicher, and almost every point of difference we count an im¬ 
provement. We shall not enumerate these seriatim, nor discuss the 
many vivid contrasts which occur to us with the two works side by 
side, but rather endeavour to explain the features which characterize 
the new £ Genera,’ and which render it in every way as useful as it 
seems to us it could possibly be made. The authors adopt, so far as 
they have progressed in this first part, a sequence of the higher 
groups, in the main that of A. P. He Candolle, followed in the £ Pro- 
dromus’ and other systematic works of importance. There are, 
however, some modifications of the Candollean system introduced, 
to which we shall direct attention farther on. 
The present part includes, in upwards of 400 well-printed pages, 
56 Orders of Polypetalous Dicotyledons, from Banunculaceae to Con- 
naraceae. A synopsis or conspectns of thes? orders * is prefixed to 
* Excepting the last—Connaraceae, which is the first of the Calycifloral Series, 
to he continued in the next part. 
