Abstract
THIS little book is a synonymic catalogue of the British flowering plants and vascular Cryptogamia, in which are given the names under which the species stand in the last edition of the four standard hand-books, Sowerby's “English Botany,' Hooker's “Student's Flora,” Bentham's “Flora,” Babington's “Manual,” and in the London Catalogue. In a considerable number of cases the five differ more or less in the names which they adopt. This arises partly from the five authors taking a different view of specific limits. About two hundred of what Sir J. D. Hooker and Dr. Boswell call sub-species are usually regarded as species by Babington and as varieties by Bentham. The whole series of genera has lately been revised and redescribed by Mr. Bentham and Sir J. D. Hooker, and many which have been proposed by other authors are now placed as sub-genera or sunk altogether. In the preparation of the great Darwin catalogue of plants, under the editorship of Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, the priority of names has been more systematically investigated than has ever been previously attempted, and this has led to a great many changes. These are embodied in the last edition of the widely-used London Catalogue; but as the new or revised names stand there without any explanation, those who wish to use the list are often greatly puzzled, and it was a good idea of Mr. Warburton to prepare the present synonymic catalogue. It appears to have been drawn up very carefully, and gives a reference to the page or number indicating where in each of the five books every species will be found, and in an appendix there is a list of synonyms used by older British or Continental authorities. There is also a full list of the original authorities for the specific names, with the titles and dates of the books and papers in which the plants were originally described. The author omits to enumerate in his list two very useful books, the “Conspectus” of Nyman, and “Salictum Woburnense” of Forbes. He has failed, and no wonder, to run down some of the London Catalogue names of Rubi (e.g. echinatus and longithyrsiger), that refer to long-known plants, fully described in Babington's “Manual and Synopsis.”
Names and Synonyms of British Plants.
By G. Egerton-Warburton. Pp. 160. (London: G. Bell and Son, 1889.)
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B., J. Our Book Shelf. Nature 40, 316 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040316b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040316b0