botany, and since inserted under the same name in Flora Britannica, where it consequently occurs twice. The long brittle teeth of this trichostomum are often found broken short, so as to resemble those of dicranum, a circumstance which led Dr. Smith into the mistake, who says of his t. cirratum, that it has the habit of dicranum polyphyllum, but is larger. Mr. Turner has given a figure of the whole plant, with separate ones of the perfect and mutilated teeth of the peristome, which clearly prove its identity with d, polyphyllum of English Botany. T. ericoides, fasciculare, and canescens are, in Mr. Turner's opinion, only varieties of the same species.

Under the genus tortula two species are inserted, humilis and apiculata, which do not appear in the Flora Britannica; the former allied to subulata, the latter differing from specimens received from America only in its pedicells, being a little longer, and capsules more cylindric.

Dicranum bryoides, and viridulum, Mr. Turner pronounces the same plant, not only on the authority of Swartz, but having himself found that the difference arises merely from difference of situa

tion, and that one of them actually passes into the other.

To buxbaumia foliosa the very singu lar species aphyllum is now first added to the British Flora, of which, however, there is at present only a single specimen, found on rocks near the Lake of Killarney.

In the body of the work Mr. Turner has expressed a suspicion, that bryum fasciculatum of Mr. Dickson does not differ from grimmia verticillata, to which it is actually annexed as a synonym in the Flora Britannica; but he informs us in the preface that, having since received specimens from Mr. Dickson himself, he is convinced it is a distinct species.

Mnium is united with bryum, in opposition to the opinion of Dr. Smith, who considers the furrowed ripe capsule as a decisive generic distinction.

Through the whole work the characters which separate kindred species are carefully pointed out, and a laudable disposition is manifested not to increase the number of species, by raising minute differences to the rank of specific distinctions. Twenty-six of the rarer or more dubious species are figured, elegantly drawn, and beautifully coloured from nature.

author, that most of the figures in the present work were taken from drawings made by himself" from plants of his own gathering in their native stations, and, to the best of his opinion, judiciously selected ;" and, as far as we are acquainted with them, he has happily succeeded in his design to exhibit their living images, with respect to their general outline, and mode of growth. The inflorescence also is delicately and accurately finished; but in the larger grasses the prima-facie likeness is much diminished, by the smallness of the scale on which they are drawn. As Mr. Knapp intended to publish a costly work, we could have wished that he had given us all the plants in nearly their natural dimensions; and, for this purpose, it would not have been necessary to emulate Mr. Lambert's magnificent publication on the genus, pinus. The size of the Flora Londinensis would have been sufficient; and, as two of the smaller species might have been engraved on the same plate, the expence would not have been greatly increased. But we recollect that we are

too late with our advice, and even with our wishes: all that we can properly do is to state to our readers that the figures in general are faithful and elegant, and that the colouring in particular is remarkably chaste and natural. Mr. Knapp has also availed himself of his opportunities for personal observation, to describe the different appearance which plants of the same species frequently assume in different situations, and has thereby done an acceptable service to the investigating botanist, in a branch of his inquiries which has always been the source of much perplexity and confu

sion.

As the title page promises only representations of the British grasses, with remarks and occasional descriptions, we have certainly no right to expect more; but we cannot avoid repeating, that we are strenuous advocates for complete detailed descriptions in all provincial, and, as far as possible, in all national works on botany. The minute parts, and especially the fructification of a plant which has been gathered only a few hours, may be examined with so much greater ease and certainty than a dried specimen, that the advantage should by no means be neglected whenever it occurs. Two or more species have, in numerous instances, been thought to be the same, because their respective individuals all answer to some established artificial character, though they differ from each other in several essential particulars, and consequently require the formation of new specific distinctions. In examining the plants here figured, we have not been without suspicion that one or two of them are in this predica

ment.

The Flora Britannica of Dr. Smith is professedly our author's principal guide: but he laudably thinks for himself, and follows the path pointed out to him by his own observation and experience. The panicum verticillatum of this work, and that figured under the same name in English Botany, are evidently different plants, and, as appears to us, different species. In Mr. Knapp's, the involucelli are about twice the length of the flower, and their spines, as well as those on the upper part of the culm, point upwards. But he observes in a note, that "he is strongly of opinion that Britain possesses another species or remarkable variety of verticillatum, as he has seen in several collections plants of this panic, said to

be indigenous, in which the spines on the upper part of the culm are pointed downwards, and the involucelli catch and attach themselves to every passing body, by means of their strong inverted spines." This is certainly the verticil latum of the English Botany: but we are inclined to think that the plant described in the Flora Britannica is that figured by Mr. Knapp, for Dr. Smith expressly says, that the bractes or invo lucelli are twice the length of the flower, whereas in English Botany, he observes that they do not reach far beyond the flower, and that their different length will pretty certainly distinguish the verticillatum and viride at first sight. The direction of the spines is, however, the best specific distinction; but to this circumstance Dr. Smith's attention did not happen to be directed when he wrote that part of the Flora Britannica.

Mr. Knapp describes the pedicelli of both the verticillatum and the viride as "curiously hollowed out like a cup to receive the florets, which are so very slightly fixed in them that they are fre quently detached by the expansion of the calyx;" and he thinks it probable that "the object of the third valve of the calyx is to accomplish this purpose, and elevate by its extension the florets from their stipes." It is worthy of enquiry whether the verticillatum of English Botany has similar cup-shaped pedicells. Panicum viride is said by Leers to have pedicelli vix conspicui, nodoso-truncati.

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It is remarked by Mr. Knapp, that the corolla in panicum verticillatum, viride & crusgalli, " is remarkable, and a singularity in our grasses, nature hav ing appointed it with three valves, the third valve being a fine transparent membrane, to be found attached to the inner valve of the corolla, and hidden by the inner valve of the calyx." Dr. Smith in English Botany (876) says, that “in crusgalli a thin elliptical mem brane," clearly expressed in Mr. Sowerby's figure, and corresponding with Mr. Knapp's, "is clapped close to the inner valve of the corolla on the outside, which Dr. Stokes (Withering, ed. 2. 55.) considers as a fourth valve of the calyx, no doubt justly, and mentions having seen it in the viride and some other spe cies." "But," he adds, "we have not been equally successful in this respect," referring evidently to viride, &c. for he had certainly seen it in crus-galli. It

was, we believe, first perceived in England by Mr. Curtis in p. crus-galli and sanguinale, and considered by him as belonging to the corolla. Mr. Knapp in his account of the latter says, that he "thinks Mr. Curtis mentions the calyx as having four valves, and that he himself has occasionally found a minute membranaceous substance between the little valve at the base and the larger one, like an inner glume, but apparently so weak and small a membrane can scarcely afford the support that is the required office of the calyx." This, however, is not the situation assigned by Mr. Curtis to this membrane, and it seems surprising that Mr. Knapp did not suspect its similarity to what he had called a third valve of the corolla in his two preceding species. It had previously been observed by Leers, and called a third glume of the corolla, but with a conjecture that it may possibly be the rudiment of another floret. Leers found it constantly in glaucum, crus-galli, and miliaceum, but never in viride; whence, perhaps, it may be questioned whether his viride be that of other authors Dr. Stokes in Botanical Arrangements, ed. 2, says that it exists, but in his idea as a fourth valve of the calyx, in glaucum, viride, miliaceum, capillare, patens, and even in sanguinale, where, preserving its proportion to the outer valve, it is with difficulty discovered.

Mr. Knapp supposes, that though the British, or rather Cornish specimens of panicum dactylon have only two valves to the calyx, contrary to the generic character, the continental ones have not that peculiarity. But this supposition is certainly erroneous. Linnæus, we believe, does not mention it in any of his works; but Haller placed this species with sanguinale, in which also be did not find the third valve, in a distinct genus, which he calls digitana: the genus was adopted by Adanson and Scopoli, and has been retained by Jussieu and Ventenat. Leers describes the third valve of the sanguinaria as vix lente dignoscenda, sæpissime omnino nulla, and, according to Mr. Curtis, it is so very small that it may be easily overlooked. Lamarck, and Paret, his successor in the alphabetical part of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, remove both species to the genus paspalum.

The generic character of panicum in the present work is taken from Dr. Smith's, in his Flora Britannica; but the term corticatum applied to the corolla enclosing the ripened seed is uncouthly translated cork-like in English Botany it is properly called the permanent, hardened corolla. If dactylon is to remain a panicum, we agree with Dr. Smith in thinking that this particular should constitute the whole generic character, for we cannot help regarding it as one of the greatest of all possible absurdities to admit an essential character which cannot be applied to every acknowledged species of the genus.

We should suppose that alopecurus ovatus of Mr. Knapp is a. alpinus of English Botany, 1126 (both being species recently discovered by Mr. G. Don, late of Forfar, now of the botanic garden at Edinburgh, and both gathered on the same mountains near Loch Nagarr, in Aberdeenshire), if it were not for the absolute inconsistence of their specific characters: that of ovatus in British grasses is "spike ovate ; corolla without an arista :" that of alpinus in English Botany is "spike ovate ; glumes of the calyx downy, without awns, and nearly as long as the awn of the corolla."* We can scarcely think it possible that the awn could be overlooked by Mr. Knapp, especially as he particularly mentions the want of it as a remarkable singularity among the British species; and yet it seems not a little surprising that neither of the English botanists, though both in actual correspondence with Mr. Don, should have been made acquainted with the plant figured and described by the other. Excepting this difference, the two figures exactly correspond; for the small spikelet at the base of the spike in Mr. Knapp's ovatus is, we presume, an accidental irregularity. Mr. Knapp has made a slight mistake in supposing Loch-ne-gar, or Loch Garr, as it is spelt in Ainslie's large map of Scotland, to be a high mountain, the giant of Aberdeenshire : it is a small lake, or, as the Scotch spell the word, loch, at the head of Glen Yalden, near the north-east termination of the Grampians.

In the difficult and much agitated genus agrostis, Mr. Knapp is of opinion that several British plants, which have

botanist, Mr. Knapp expresses his conviction," that Mr. Curtis did not arrogantly assume this merit to himself, but overlooked the distinctions marked by Hudson." We, on our part, are con vinced that Mr. Hudson actually copied them from the Flora Londinensis. His first edition was published in 1762, at which time he was certainly ignorant of this decisive difference. The second edition, which Mr. Knapp quotes, is dated 1778. The Flora Londinensis began to be published in numbers in the interval between the appearance of these two editions: the title page to the first volume was printed in 1777, and, if our recollection do not fail us, it accompanied the last number of the third fasciculus: the two poas in question were described and figured in the second. But, however that may be, we think it a decisive proof of their appearing before Mr. Hudson's second edition, that the first edition is referred to under trivialis, and that Mr. Curtis uniformly quoted the second from the time when it came into his hands. We have no object in this discussion but to settle the historical fact. The luxuriant wreaths which have so long adorned the brows of these excellent naturalists cannot be affected either by the addition or subtraction of so minute a sprig.

In admitting stipa pennata into the British Flora on the sole authority of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Lawson, Mr. Knapp follows the example of all English botanists who have written since their time; but we are sorry to see the former treated as an enthusiastic botanist, so open to imposition as to render his authority of little value. The circumstance of his having been an enthusiastic botanist will not, we are persuaded, sink his character in the estimation of Mr. Knapp; and, if we allow that he was imposed upon with respect to epimedium alpinum, it will not follow that he was so in any other instance, or that in his general character he was weakly credulous. But in the present case his veracity, and not his judgment, is called in question. Dillenius expressly says, in the third edition of Ray's Synopsis, where stipa pennata is mentioned for the first time as an English plant, that it was found by Dr. Richardson, in company with Thomas Lawson, on the limestone rocks hanging over a little valley called Long Sleadale, about six miles north of Kendal, in Westmore. land. Mr. Lawson was not, as Mr.

Knapp conjectures, gardener to Dr. Richardson, but lived a few miles from Long Sleadale, at Strickland, near Shap. He is mentioned as a contributor to the first edition of Ray's Synopsis, and said to be a diligent and industrious, and no less skilful botanist. He was dead when the third edition of that work was published: the information, therefore, concerning stipa pennata, probably came from Dr. Richardson himself, who, as appears from the preface to that edition, and from numerous passages in the Historia Muscorum, was in constant correspondence with Dillenius.

Mr. Knapp is in general averse to the change of specific names; but he thinks he may be justified in calling the rarer British species of briza, aspera instead of minor, as the latter conveys the delusive idea of its being a small plant, whereas it is as tall or rather taller than the media. We beg leave to observe, that on this principle that of media should also have been changed.

Dactylis stricta, in Mr. Knapp's judgment, would associate better with triticum. Festuca rubra he thinks only a variety of duriuscula; poa humilis of the appendix to the third volume of the Flora Britannica (subcærulea of English Botany, 1004), and poa glauca of the same appendix, he regards as varieties of duriuscula. Elymus Europæus of Linnæus and Dr. Smith, he removes with Hudson to hordeum, and adopts his trivial name, sylvaticum. The travelling botanist will be glad to learn that this, and the still rarer festuca calamaria, may be found at so frequented a place as Matlock. The latter in particular grows in the wood opposite the old baths, in the lower left hand walk on the edge of the river, and near the seat where the walk terminates. Guernsey and Jersey are not included by Mr. Knapp within the pale of the Flora Britannica, lagurus ovatus, though admitted by Dr. Smith, is of course rejected. On the other hand, avena nuda, which Dr. Smith excludes, has a place amongst Mr. Knapp's British grasses, with an intimation, however, that it is not strictly indigenous. There are only two grasses figured in the work as altogether new. The first is an aira, which he calls scabrosetacea: it grows in pits of water on Forfar heath, in Angus, and differs from flexuosa in requiring a watry situation for its existence, in the rigidity of its texture, but chicfy in

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