x a /— PREFACE. 
The terms employed by us in our characters or descriptions are usual- 
ly either purely English, or as close as their Latin etymology will per- 
mit; in the latter case, we have often preferred spelling the concluding 
syllable as near as possible to the Latin word, to adopting the more le- 
gitimate rules prescribed for such cases by English grammarians, (thus 
the Latin -osus, we have generally rendered by -ose instead of -ous), be- 
cause frequently by the latter we should have had to adopt the words al- 
ready employed in English under various senses, none of which are 
strictly in conformity with our meaning. But all these terms are ex- 
plained in the more common elementary works: one or two only occur, 
which we have used restrietively, and these we shall here mention, be- 
cause they appear to be applied by several distinguished botanists either 
indiseriminately or differently from what we have done. 
. Even, not torulose or undulated, and with a plane surface. 
- Smooth, without asperities. 
Bey Glabrous, without hairs or pubescence. 
ER. Drooping, by this we mean in Latin pendulus, but we sometimes may have 
: also employed the word pendulous. 
. Free, not cohering with any thing; as the ovary and fruit in Sa/icariec. — 
. Distinct, free from each other; as the carpels in Ranunculus. 
. Evident, manifest or conspicuous. 
In addition to these restricted words, we may mention one which we 
have employed in the original but very wide sense, we mean pinnated : 
De Candolle applies it only when the leaflets are jointed with the pe- 
 tiole, as in the orange and leguminous tribes; but we have found it 
sometimes a matter of considerable diffieulty to determine, in the dried 
Specimens, whether there be true joints or not: besides, the term pinnati- 
sect, to imply a division of the leaf without joints, has hitherto been 
scarcely, if at all, introduced into any English botanical work. The 
words pinnated and leaflet, then, in this volume, have no reference to the 
existence or non-existence of joints between the leaflets and the petiole. 
Our synonyms may be classed under two heads; works constantly 
referred to, and works only occasionally so. To the former belong De 
Candolles Prodromus Systematis Natur. Vegetabilium (of which only 
_ four volumes, the last concluding with Dipsacee, are published) : 
. Sprengel’s Systema Vegetabilium, being the last catalogue, although in 
. many points exceedingly incorrect, according to the Linnean system 
. Roth's Nove Plantarum Species; Roxburgh’s Coromandel Plants, and 
his Flora Indica, both editions: of plates without scientific descriptions, 
 Rheede' Hortus Malabaricus, Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense, Bi 
.. mann's Thesaurus Zeylanieus, and Plukenet’s figures, are quoted : and 
.. 9f catalogues, Wallich's List already mentioned, and Wight's Catalogue, 
. both lithographed for the purpose of accompanying the specimens dis- 
_ tributed. The second class of authors we scarcely think it necessary 
