PREFACE. VI 1 



illustrated works of Turner, Dillwyn, Sovverby, and Greville ; 

 and not less by an extensive correspondence, and by the kind 

 assistance of my friends, in those tribes which have been 

 hitherto less an object of study with me than others. The 

 obligations I lie under to those friends, are invariably men- 

 tioned in the respective pages which owe so much to them ; but 

 it behoves me here, in an especial manner, to express my grateful 

 acknowledgments to Mrs. Griffiths, and to Messrs. Borrer, 

 Greville, Arnott, Wilson, and Harvey. The papers of the late 

 Capt. Carmichael have also been an invaluable help to me. 



The present Part, or half Volume, is confined to the Orders 

 Musci, ffepaticce, Lichenes, Characece, and Algce. Another 

 Part, containing the second portion of the Volume, will embrace 

 the only remaining Order, the Fungi, and will be published 

 with all the speed consistent with careful execution. The 

 Fungi, as is known by every Botanist, constitute an order 

 of immense extent, and one, which, notwithstanding all that has 

 been done by Withering, Sowerby, Purton, Carmichael, and 

 Dr. Greville, must yet be acknowledged as the least understood 

 of all our British Flora. The labour attending the study of 

 these is much increased by their perishable nature, and by the 

 difficulty, almost amounting to an impossibility, of preserving 

 specimens ; so that, in many instances, if they are not carefully 

 examined, and described or drawn on the spot, it is in vain 

 to attempt to remedy the deficiency from the contents of an 

 Herbarium. 



Thus much I have a satisfaction in saying, that the Rev. M. 

 J. Berkeley of Margate, (author of Gleanings of the British 

 Algce,) has kindly undertaken to prepare the descriptions of 

 the Agarics and some allied Genera ; and to Mr. Purton, who 

 has so well illustrated the Fungi in his Flora of the Midland 

 Counties, I am indebted for copious MS. notes, on all the species 

 that have come under his observation. Still, in so extensive 

 and intricate a field, I shall greatly need the indulgence of my 

 fellow-students; and I entreat their assistance, in communicating 

 their remarks, as well as specimens and drawings <»t* the rarer 

 kinds, or of new and dubious ones, from every part of the king- 

 dom, particularly from the south of England, which, 1 have rea- 

 son to believe, lias been but little explored in this department, 

 and which yet, from its climate, bids fair to be very productive. 



