Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/400

872 DIE VEGETATION DER ERDE. formations of Europe and neighbouring provinces. As Professors Engler and Drude point out in their preface, we undoubtedly want general works on the physiognomy of the vegetation of individual areas, its composition and relationships. They also recognize the difficulties in the preparation of such works. Travellers' accounts are too superficial or one-sided, and systematic plant-lists too crude to give a fair idea of the plant-life of a country. This can only be done by long and careful work in the field, with the assistance of a good herbarium. We hope the editors will secure as capable an exponent of other provinces as they have in the present instance, to which moreover a sad interest attaches. Moritz Willkomm died in September last, while his book was going through the press. The whole work is to be divided into three sections. The first will be devoted to general chapters of plant-geography, or climatology in its influence on plant-distribution, history of development of floras, and phylogenetic investigations on geo- logical and biological bases." The second will consist of mono- graphs on plant-formations, especially those of Europe and neighbouring provinces." The third section, of which the present work is the first instalment, deals with the principles of plant- distribution by means of monographs illustrating ** natural floral provinces." Dr. Willkomm's book opens with an account of the history and literature of the botanical investigation of the peninsula. Ancient writers tell us next to nothing of the original vegetation ; Strabo mentions the esparto-grass between Saguntum and Setabis, but, except for a few such references to striking or useful plants, we are limited to indirect evidence. From this we know that woods have disappeared from mountains and covered areas which were originally bare of trees. The first scientific exploration was that of Charles de I'Ecluse (Clusius), who in 1560 and 1564-65 visited Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, Estremadura, Portugal, and Castalia, and in 1576 published at Antwerp the result of his travels in his Eariorum Stirinum per HispaJiias ohservatarum Histoiia. In 1646 Jacob Barrelier travelled through several provinces, the results of which were not printed till 1714, after his death. Between 1681 and 1689 Tournefort made three journeys, the third of which was an extensive one ; the list of the numerous plants collected or observed in this last journey was never published, and for a long time was almost unknown. The historical account occupies twenty- three pages, and brings us down to the issue of the Supple))) entum Procb'omi Florce Hispanice of 1894. The remainder of the subject- matter falls into two parts and an appendix. Part I. is entitled *' Distribution of Vegetation-Formations on the Iberian Peninsula," and occupies two chapters. The first is a sketch of the physical geography ; the second deals with the distri- bution of individual plant-formations in zones and regions. Of the 148 families of seed-plants, Coinpositce, Pajnlionacece, Gi-aminece, Crudferce, LabiatcB, Umbellifera, Caryophyllacece^ and ScrophulariacecB come first with 766, 532, 439, 318, 288, 240, 220, and 219 species respectively. The high position of Labiata is characteristic; in the