Murray's Northern Flora. 651 



such works are the greatest benefactors to science, and best 

 entitled to the esteem and goodwill of its votaries. By their 

 labours it is fostered in various parts of the country where it 

 can be successfully investigated: other local botanists are 

 hereby produced, who, in their turn, will contribute to the 

 general fund of botanical information. 



By this means botany will be rescued from neglect, and 

 elevated to its proper place as a useful and interesting part of 

 a liberal course of study. Floras of districts, counties, pro- 

 vinces, or other sectional portions of a country, are the most 

 suitable for such as are desirous of learning the science; be- 

 cause the student will not be perplexed with«a multitude of 

 species, as in general floras. Moreover, their characters, habits, 

 and localities, with their seasons of growth and maturity, can 

 be more accurately described by the botanist who has the 

 means of investigating them in all their different states and 

 modifications. 



It will be easy for any person, who has such a work in his 

 possession, to learn the names and properties of the sponta- 

 neous productions of the fields, the woods, and the commons 

 through which he passes either on business or pleasure ; to 

 combine them in orders and genera by their more essential 

 characters; and to separate them by their individual charac- 

 teristics. With this for a basis, the student may easily extend 

 his acquaintance, not only to the plants indigenous to his 

 native country, but towards the productions of foreign lands. 

 The following facts will show that this is not an exaggerated 

 statement: — Two thirds of the genera, and above one half of 

 the species, spontaneously produced in any country may be 

 collected within a moderate distance of the collector's resi- 

 dence; say ten miles. On Hampstead Heath, and in the 

 woods and fields within a mile's distance of the same; or within 

 a circuit of two miles' radius around Hampstead, above half 

 the indigenous plants of Britain have been gathered. 



The number of genera of British vascular plants, including 

 Cilices and Chara, is 460. Of these, 300 have been collected 

 in the confined tract above mentioned ; being considerably 

 more than five eighths of the whole. The natural orders of 

 these species (viz. British) are about 100: of these, 87 have 

 been seen in the above-prescribed limit of four miles' diameter, 

 which are about nine tenths of the whole. Within 20 miles 

 of London, all the British genera are found, exclusive of 

 about one sixth. This latter extent supplies about three 

 fourths of the number of British species ; the former, above 

 one half. From these facts, which the writer of this article 

 can verify, the great importance of local, provincial, and 



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