HEGEL ON THE RUSSIAN ELORA. 
227 
tion, other rich accumulated material derived from the same, or con¬ 
terminous tracts of the great Northern Empire. The plants 
acquired by Grovernor StubendorfF in Siberia, and on his Kamts- 
chatka journey of 1849, form one of the most important of these 
accessory collections. 
With material so abundant, and the advantage of constant 
access to the original specimens contained in the St. Peters- 
burgh Herbarium, which is extremely rich in northern plants, our 
author found himself in a position to revise several of the more 
difficult genera and subgenera, and one valuable result of his 
comparisons, we find in many synoptical monographs scattered 
through the work in the form of note's. Some of the more important 
of these groups Dr. Kegel proposes to publish independently, as in 
the case of the genus Thalictrum , issued last year. The elaboration 
of the Monopetalous Orders is assigned to v. Herder, known to us 
as joint author with Kegel and Kach of an Enumeration of the 
plants collected by Paullowsky and StubendorfF in Siberia. All the 
remaining Orders, both Phanerogamic and Cryptogamic, Dr. Kegel 
undertakes. Herr Kadde himself proposes to work up a general 
review of the relations of the vegetation of the tracts which he 
travelled over, noting the distribution, &c., of the more characteristic 
species. 
Dr. Kegel expresses his deep conviction of the importance 
of the claim which scientific botany now makes on the systematist, 
that the innumerable forms and varieties which have been set up 
as species, should be reduced and referred to the respective specific 
types from which, through the influence of various external agents, 
they have more or less departed. It appears to have been his 
honest endeavour to act in accordance with this view, so far as 
his work has progressed, and upon the whole, as it seems to us,' 
he has been fairly successful in applying it. This, however, ex¬ 
perience will best show, for the real advantage which we conceive to 
arise from the employment of a comprehensive specific term, though 
it must be greatly dependent upon a correct appreciation on the part 
of the monographer of such influence in modifying his specific types, 
depends also in no small degree upon a nicety of judgment and capa¬ 
bility of balancing the comparative value of what we call characters , 
and of estimating affinities, which are by no means at the command 
of many even of our best botanists. One or two examples which we 
shall presently select, will serve to show Dr. Kegel’s method better 
than our farther explanation. 
In the enumeration, which now extends to Caryophyllaceae, no 
diagnoses or descriptions are given excepting of new species and 
varieties, and when additions to or corrections of previous writings 
are called for. In the synoptical reviews of genera referred to above, 
and which are not incorporated in the enumeration, brief diagnostic 
characters are however given. The works of Ledebour, Middendorf, 
Q 2 
