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has placed that capital among those great centres where systematic botany can be pursued as a science. It was, therefore, with perfect sincerity that we congratulated him on first undertaking a Flora Italiana on the natural system, in which the acknowledged defects of Bertoloni's should be remedied; and in many respects his promises have been fulfilled, but we must confess that our anticipations have not been entirely realised. The descriptions are accurate, the stations general and special, and geographical range of the species are all that could be wished, the typography excellent; but the plan adopted is too comprehensive to be useful. Three octavo volumes, of above 600 pages each, are occupied by Monocotyledons alone, and there is an interval of ten years between the date of the first and the last part; at the same rate, the whole work must extend to twelve volumes, and we should not see it completed for the next thirty years. And the great bulk of the work is not compensated by any adequate advantage, the diffuseness of the descriptions interfering much with their practical use. In the third volume especially, long Latin diagnoses, or ablative descriptions of ten to fifteen lines, followed by an Italian description of from half a page to a page or more, only serve to envelope the real specific characters in a mist of words, unaccompanied as they are by any diagnostic tables or italics to indicate the points mainly relied upon. Digressions upon systematic subjects are out of place in a local Flora; a superabundance of synonyms does little more than exhibit the author's erudition, and a multiplication of species and monotypic genera should at any rate not be resorted to without a comparison with corresponding exotic forms. Such well-marked Orchideæ, for instance, as Orchis hircina, longibracteata, pyramidalis, secundiflora, &c., each of whose history, characters, and station might have been clearly given, whe ther as genera or species, in half a page, occupy three, four, or five pages each, which the student must read through several times and compare with many others equally long, before he can discover the essential points he has to attend to. Canna indica, which, after all, is an introduced not an indigenous plant, occupies nearly twelve pages. The splitting up of such natural genera as Iris and Alisma is quite uncalled for, and the transforming monotypic genera, such as Aphyllanthes, into Natural Orders, only confuses the system without contributing one iota to the advancement of science.

Of Caruel's Prodromus, the title of which we have also prefixed to this article, we can only speak in terms of approval as far

as it goes. It is a well-arranged systematic enumeration of the plants of Tuscany, with ample details as to localities, and occasional observations, critical or economical, none of them out of place. This is all that would have been wanted had there existed a general Synopsis or Manual of the Italian Flora to enable the local botanist to determine his plants. Short characters would not have added much to the extent of Caruel's work, aud room might have been partly made by the omission of some of the synonyms or references. The author refers the student for practical use to Koch's Synopsis of the German, or to Gussone's of the Sicilian Flora, both of them excellent, but even the two together do not include the whole of the Tuscan species. The three parts already published of Caruel's Prodromus, contain the whole of the Dicotyledons, and we hope very soon to receive the fourth, concluding the work.

Of the Grecian region there exists no general Flora, nor do we know of any one in prospect, and there are no local Floras of the Grecian or Turkish portions by resident or native botanists. Almost all we know of the vegetation of the country is due to the labours of foreign travellers and collectors. Sibthorp's splendid "Flora Græca," commenced by Smith and concluded by Lindley, generally recognised as one of the finest illustrated botanical works in existence, is not a Flora in the true sense of the word, but mainly an enumeration and description of the plants collected by Sibthorp and illustrated by Sowerby, in Greece and Asia Minor. Grisebach's "Spicilegium Flora Rumeliæ et Bithyniæ," in two octavo volumes, 1843-1844, is a good synopsis of all the plants of Southern Turkey in Europe, either collected by himself, or known to him by specimens or published descriptions. Beyond these the Flora of the country must be collected from general works, isolated papers, books of travel, &c., the modern additions to the plants of the present kingdom of Greece, are chiefly to be found in Boissier's "Diagnoses." For the Austrian portion of the region, the province of Dalmatia, we have a really valuable work, the "Flora Dalmatica" of Visiani, a native of, and formerly resident at Sebenico in Dalmatia, now Professor of Botany at Padua. This Flora, commenced in 1848, was completed in 1852, in three quarto volumes, thin enough to be bound in one, and as a complete work, must, in almost every respect, take rank as the best Flora which has yet appeared of any considerable district in Mediterranean Europe.

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LII.-BAILLON'S ADANSONIA.

ADANSONIA. RECUEIL PÉRIODIQUE D'OBSERVATIONS BOTANIQUES. Tome Troisième. Par le Dr. H. Baillon.

ADANSONIA appears in monthly numbers, and professes to include only unpublished works relative to pure and applied Botany. The volume now before us, dated September, 1862, to August, 1863, contains 23 Memoirs, of which no fewer than 19 are by M. Baillon himself.

M. Baillon's Memoirs are usually organogenic or systematic. In the present volume they treat of the most diverse groups; Euphorbiaceae and Loranthaceae, being most prominent; both of them Natural Orders upon which M. Baillon has previously appeared in print. The systematic work in this volume is not of the most satisfactory kind, chiefly, perhaps, because the material at the disposal of the authors is much too small to enable them to do good service in systematic monography by working up the groups taken in hand with anything like completeness. Hence we never know what to look for in the systematic papers of the Adansonia, and consequently do not very often refer to them. There can be no question that M. Baillon is capable of doing excellent service to Botany; he is most diligent and hard-working, and very acute, and were he to allow his judgment more time to mature than can possibly be the case so long as he continues to support this monthly periodical principally by his own pen, his abilities would undoubtedly secure him deservedly honourable recognition amongst his fellow-workers.

M. Baillon is a zealous disciple of the late Professor Payer and 'l'organogénie florale' helps him to the solution of every difficulty. While we should be amongst the last to reject evidence based upon the development of organs, we cannot help thinking that very undue value has been ascribed by the organogenists to the sequence of development of organs, and we are far from assenting to some of those empirical propositions which find amongst them the favour of axioms. We took occasion to refer to one or two of these in our review of Dr. Hooker's memoir on Welwitschia in a previous number of this Journal (1863, p. 208); it is not our object to enter upon a discussion of the points upon which we differ from the organogenic school at present.

Of several of the memoirs contained in this volume of Adansonia, we must be content to mention the title, with such further indication

only of their contents as may suffice to convey to our readers some idea of their general bearing. To some of them we may have occasion to refer at a future time.

1. Organogénie florale des Cordiacées.

2. Observations sur l'organisation des Fleurs dans le genre Apoсупит. M. Baillon finds that the insertion of the corolla in Apocynum is slightly perigynous, owing, as he endeavours to show, to a cupuliform enlargement of the floral receptacle. The sepals he regards as wholly free. The structure of the anthers and the

nature of their basal appendices are explained.

3. Organogénie des Triglochin. (Par M. Cordemoy.)

4. Observations sur les affinités du Macarisia et sur l'organisation de quelques Rhizophorées. Macarisia, one of M. du PetitThouars' imperfectly described Madagascar plants, referred with doubt to Ixionanthes by M. Planchon, is here referred to the Legnotideae, of which group indeed M. Baillon accepts it as the type, and proceeds, according to his wont, to compare with it the other genera of the Sub-order.

Anisophyllum is, we believe with justice, approximated to the same group, though not for the first time. M. Baillon speaks of it as a "Macarisia with tetramerous flowers and an inferior ovary." The specific name trapezoidale is proposed for a plant brought from Singapore by Gaudichaud. It is probable that this is the Haloragis disticha of Jack; if so, his specific name should take precedence. Gardner's generic name Anstrutheria adopted by Mr. Bentham in his Memoir on the Legnotideae for the Richaia of PetitThouars, M. Baillon supersedes by the name Weihea of Sprengel, on the ground of priority. A synopsis of the Legnotideae of the Paris Museum is appended to the author's critical observations. 5. Note sur les Fleurs des Schizandrées.

6. Sur la Fleur des Pivoines. M. Baillon agrees with Lindley in classing the Paeonies near the Hellebores, pointing out, however, that they differ in being perigynous, and suggesting that Paonia and Crossosoma might constitute a distinct tribe at the end of Ranunculaceae, connecting this order with Dilleniaceae, as the aril of Crossosoma and the thickening of the funicle of Paonia seem to warrant.

7. Deuxième Mémoire sur les Loranthacées. M. Baillon's first Memoir on this group we briefly noticed in our Bibliographical summary for 1862 (N. H. R. 1863, 576). One of its principal

features was the proposal to unite under one Order, (Loranthaceae) the Orders, as generally accepted, of Santalaceae, Loranthaceae and Olacaceae. One objection which may be urged against this combination is the practical inconvenience which must result from breaking up the sequence of Orders, which is generally adopted in our standard systematic works. We prefer tolerable consistency in what may be but a doubtful course, to the maze in which we have reason to apprehend we shall be involved, were the general importance now attributed to the insertion of the floral whorls disregarded in classification. There are many Orders which may be regarded as extremely natural, which are separated by very artificial and arbitrary characters, but recognising these boundaries as often arbitrary and simply of convenience, as every botanist must do, we do not see that such concessions to practical convenience need prejudice the philosophical ends of classification. In this particular case, however, perhaps some compromise might be made by reducing the groups with inferior ovaries, viz., Loranthaceae and Santalaceae to a single Order, which might be disposed of in the Division Monochlamydeae. The greater portion of this second memoir on the Loranthaceae is devoted to the Olacaceous genera, which M. Baillon includes in the Order, coneluding with a "Conspectus Generum," in which the genera are classed under the following' Series' and Tribes :—

Series I. Loranthaceae. Ovula adscendentia. Subordo A. Loranthaceae propriae. Ovarium inferum (by a misprint superum). -Subordo B. Anthoboleae. Ovarium superum.

Series II. Santalineae. Ovula descendentia. Subordines C. D. (vix separandae) Santalaceae et Olacineae (-C. Ovarium inferum. Santalaceae propriae.-D. Ovarium superum. Olacincae propriae, excl. Icacineis et Phytocreneis).

We may have occasion to return to the consideration of the genera of Olacineae at some future time. At present we confine our observations to the "Loranthaceae propriae." M. Baillon appears to have relied far too much upon the characters given by previous writers, for his cursory study of the plants themselves is too apparent. Of several species he must have seen imperfect representatives, and three of the nine genera he acknowledges that he has not seen at all. With regard to Arceuthobium no reference is made to the characteristic bifid perianth of the female flowers. This character, together with the unilocular anthers, precludes its being merged in Viscum, of which, it is suggested, it might perhaps suitably

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