Abstract
IN his introduction, Dr. Druce gives an account of the work of Hewett Cottrell Watson, who devoted many years of a long life to the study of the geographical distribution of our British plants. Watson divided the country into provinces, sub-provinces and counties or vice-counties (112 in number) and also employed terms to indicate altitudinal distribution and the nature of the habitat. His results were collected in two classic works, the “Cybele Britannica” in four volumes (1847–59) with a “Supplement”(1860) and the 1 “Topographical Botany” in two parts (1873–74). A second edition of the last-named was prepared by J. G. Baker and the Rev. W. W. Newbould and two “Supplements” have since been published in the Journal of Botany, the first by Arthur Bennett (1905), the second by Bennett, C. E. Salmon and J. R. Matthews (1929–30). Dr. R. L. Praeger's “Irish Topographical Botany”(1901), with “Supplements” in 1906 and 1929, is authoritative for the Irish counties.
The Comital Flora of the British Isles (Flora Comitalis Britannicce: Fl. Com. Brit.): being the Distribution of British (including a number of Non-Indigenous) Plants throughout the 152 Vice-Counties of Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands, with the Place of Growth, Elevation, World-Distribution, Grade, Chief Synonyms and First Names by which the Plants were recorded as British.
By Dr. George Claridge Druce. With an original coloured Map showing the Botanical Vice-Counties presented by William James Patey. Pp. xxxii + 407. (Arbroath: T. Buncle and Co., 1932.) 20s.
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R., A. British County Flora. Nature 131, 309 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131309a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131309a0