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CORRESl'ONDENCE. 85
vegetation of tlie Cretaceous period, and all of them are members of
the European Miocenes.
Among the Ferns from the Tertiary strata is an Onoclea, which
Professor Newberry cannot distinguish from the living American 0.
sensibilis, and whicli he considers the same as Fillcitis ? Hehridicus,
Forbes, from the Miocene beds of Mull.
COERESPONDENCE.
Wllkomm and Lange's Sjjanisk Flora.
W. Cakruthers,
"Terra ferax Cererej miiltoque feracior uvis."—Ovid, Aia., ii. W. 7.
Dear Sir,— At page 239 of jour fourth volume you state tliat, unless a few
more subscribei-s can be obtained, the publication of Wilkomm and Lanfje's
' Prodromus Florse Hispanicse ' must be discontinued.
It is now exactly thirty years since the late Philip Barker Webb expressed
a hope that Spanish botanists would at length awaken from their virvov \T]Qapyov
fiadvv, and endow science with a complete CMtalogue of what he rightly cha-
racterized as "tlie richest acd most varied flora in Europe."
This appeal has been partially responded to by Colmeiro, Costa, Graells, and
a few others, whilst Webb, Boissier, Reuter, Kunze, Cosson, and Gay have
done still more towards the description of Spanish plants. Nevertheless, wiiile
the vegetation of every other Europeau country is critically illustrated, in one
or more standard works, Spain and Portugal alone have no Flora, tlie extensive
and valuable collections made of late years, amongst wliich the magnificent
ones of Bourgeau stand pre-eminent, though worked up more or less completely,
having never been brought together and revised by a competent botanist,
familiar with the country.
To collect these disjecta memhra, and study them comparatively from a uniform
point of view, was the task undertaken by Professors Wilkomm and
Lange ; and, so far as the work has progressed, it must be admitted that, as
regards scientific accuracy in the diagnoses, fulness in the indications of geo-
graphical distribution, and neatness in tlie typography, it has been admirably
executed.
It seems scarcely credible, and is a reproach to European botanists, that a
work of this nature, of inestimable value for the study of the statistics of the
vegetation of our continent, should not have met with sufBcient support to
cover the expense of publication. If Boissier's ' Flora Orientalis ' proceeds
with the steadiness and rapidity which the circumstance that the material
must already, to a great extent, be prepared and arranged, gives fair reason to
expect, we sliaU in a few years— unless some effort is made to prevent the
abandonment of an undertaking for which the materials exist, and whereof the