vi P 11 E F A C E. 



chiefly confined to botanical illustration and descrip- 

 tion, with such remarks concerning the properties of 

 any particular plants as may be new or important ; 

 and possibly some philosophical views arising from 

 the nature of the subject, tending to the general 

 elucidation of botanical science. Such only are the 

 pretensions of this English Flora, the particular aim 

 and design of which, with respect to practical use, 

 will hereafter be explained. 



Before the author enters on this explanation, he 

 proposes to take a general view of the works which 

 have been published on the Botany of Great Britain ; 

 in order that the student, who will meet with per- 

 petual references to these books in the following 

 pao*es, may previously become acquainted with them, 

 and with the characters of their authors. He .may 

 thus learn which of them may be dispensed with, 

 in the prosecution of his own studies, and which 

 are most likely to assist him, in any difficult or 

 doubtful subject of inquiry. They will be noticed 

 in a chronological order, to show the progress of 

 Botany in this country, and how far each writer has 

 been indebted to his predecessors. Some remarks 

 of a similar nature, by the author of the present 

 work, were laid before the Linnaean Society, five- 

 and-twenty years ago, and are printed in the fourth 

 volume of its Transactions. They were preparatory 

 to the publication of his Latin Flora Brita^inica, and 

 served as an introduction to a critical history of the 

 genus Bromus, whose British species had previously 

 been little understood. 



Phytologia Britannica, by William How, M.D., 

 printed at London in 1G50, without the author's 



