134 
REVIEWS. 
detailed to obviate the necessity of any more extended preliminary 
instruction before the Mora begins to be freely used. Botany has 
never yet been learned from reading books, or from hearing lectures, 
and, by its nature, it never can be so learned. The student must ob¬ 
serve plants themselves, and study their forms and the structure of their 
parts before he can acquire any real knowledge of their relations. A 
certain amount of botanical verbiage may be crammed from books, but 
a student who is ignorant of specimens is ignorant of Botany. Hence it 
is desirable that, as soon as possible, he pursue his studies in the field. To 
enable him to do so with profit, he must understand the phraseology of a 
Mora; and the thirty-five pages of matter prefixed to the “ Handbook,” 
if carefully read and mastered, will be found amply sufficient as a com¬ 
mencement, to which afterwards more extended physiological and struc¬ 
tural details, gleaned from larger introductions to Botany, can be added. 
After the Introduction, is given an “ Analytical Key to the Natural 
Orders and Anomalous Genera of the British Mora,” to assist the student 
unacquainted with the natural system in tracing the position of his plant 
in its order; and from the manner in which this “Key” has been drawn 
up, we feel confident that the beginner’s main difficulty in using a mo¬ 
dern British Mora has been successfully overcome. The difficulties 
which strike the beginner who opens a book written on the plan of the 
natural system are, the number of the Orders, the length and complicity 
of their diagnostic characters, and the minute points of structure which 
distinguish oue from another, particularly the constant reference to the 
structure of ovules and seeds. In the “ Key” the most obvious characters 
have preference, and very rarely indeed are characters brought forward 
which require more than common care, with the help of a pocket-glass, 
to observe. Similar analytical keys are introduced throughout the work, 
not only for the genera of every natural order, but for the species of 
every genus, when more than one; and it is this feature of the book 
which so greatly recommends it to the use of students, who are thus 
saved the trouble of wading through long descriptions, and directed at 
once to the characters which they ought particularly to notice in the 
plant before them. Take, for example, the following analysis of the genus 
Potentilla, p. 192 :— 
Leaves digitately divided. 
Flowers white,.1. Strawberry-leaved P. 
Flowers yellow. 
Petals 4 in all, or nearly all, the flowers,.3. Tormentil P. 
Petals 5 in all, or nearly all, the flowers. 
Leaves very white underneath,.4. Hoary P. 
Leaves green on both sides. 
Stems creeping, and rooting at the nodes, . . . 2. Creeping P. 
Stems short, and tufted or procumbent, but not rooting, 5. Spring P 1 
Leaves pinnately divided. 
Flowers dingy purple,.9 . Marsh P. 
Flowers white,.8. Rock P. 
Flowers yellow. 
Stem much branched, often shrubby, leaflets few, oblong, 6. Shrubby P. 
Stem creeping, leaflets numerous, silky underneath, . 7. Goose P. 
