Abstract
FEW men have done their fellow-workers in science greater service, even if of a somewhat unobtrusive sort, than Dr. Ludwig Rabenhorst, whose recent death we announced with regret (NATURE, vol. xxiv. p. 108). His “Flora Algarum aquæ dulcis et submarinæ” is an indispensable guide to an immense labyrinth of species and genera which lie scattered up and down botanical literature. These are digested into a methodical enumeration which makes little attempt to be critical, but is content to bring the materials together just as every one who intends to study what has been done in. any special group without such an aid must do for himself. Had Rabenhorst attempted more he would never have done the useful work that he did. One very convenient feature of his books is the brief synopsis of the genera of each group, accompanied by outline woodcuts of some leading types. Amongst organisms whose real affinities are often so obscure as the lower cryptogams, the utility of this plan cannot be sufficiently approved. The woodcuts often convey information at a glance which hours of study and comparison would not extract from the descriptions. The present work, of which two parts have so far appeared, is substantially a new edition of the author's “Deutschland's Kryptogamen-Flora,” of which the first appeared as far back as 1844. The death of the original author may, it is to be hoped, have no effect on impeding its completion, as different groups are assigned to different hands, Dr. Winter commencing the fungi in the two parts before us. The scope of the whole work will be very much enlarged, but the same convenient features will be perpetuated. A speedy completion will be devoutly desired by all students of European Thallophytes.
Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich und der Schweis.
Erster B and: 1 und 2 Lief. Pilze, von Dr. G. Winter. (Leipzig, 1881.)
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Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich und der Schweis . Nature 24, 236 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024236a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024236a0