PREFACE. 



The first great discouragement of the Botanical inquirer is 

 usually the want of some test sufficiently accurate to deter- 

 mine the correctness of his conclusions, when examining 

 plants unassisted by a scientific instructor. Books of plates 

 are, it will be readily conceded, the best and most pleasing 

 media, by which it is possible to convey this much-needed 

 assistance. The generality of these, however, appear not 

 only too unwieldy for pocket-companions, and so expensive 

 as to preclude their being put into the hands of very young 

 persons, but also (as Sir J. E. Smith observes), from their 

 extreme minuteness of delineation, they too often entirely 

 supersede the employment of verbal description ; and thus 

 give rise to a species of knowledge, at once vague and unsa- 

 tisfactory. But, in the present instance, it is hoped that the 

 miniature scale which has been adopted will not only secure 

 the great recommendations of cheapness and portability, but 

 will also obviate the above-mentioned objection, — the ex- 

 pression of character in the plants figured, furnishing the 

 requisite degree of assistance; while their diminished size 

 will prevent that observation of intricate minutiae, which 

 must inevitably give to every auxiliary the fatal facility of a 

 royal road. This little work is, indeed, strictly intended as 

 a manual of illustrations, and a supplement to the descriptive 

 works of Smith, Hooker, Lindley, and Withering. The 

 plates have, therefore, been left sufficiently broad in the 

 margin to admit of their being bound with the largest of 

 these works; while the bookbinder's knife will easily reduce 

 them to the dimensions of the smallest. 



The Appendix contains the florets of the grasses, and the 

 fruit of the Callitriche and Umbelliferous plants, deli- 

 neated on a larger scale. The figures are numbered, to cor- 

 respond with the species to which they belong, as drawn in 



