^* PREFACE. 



places; and from Mr. W, Hemslet, a young but able assistant, who 

 has carefully checked my proofs with the herbarium as they have issued 

 from the printer's hands. The value of this herbarium for a work like 

 the present, is also greatly increased by the notes and determinations it 

 contains from the hands of various botanists who have worked in it, and 

 especially of Dr. PlanchoXj who had examined and corrected the de- 

 termination of a large portion of the specimens it contained during 

 several years that he had the charge of it. But the importance of this 

 herbarium, will be best appreciated by the consideration that it contains 

 specimens of almost every species described in the present work.* The 

 very few exceptions will be found to be specially noted by a. reference to 

 the herbarium in which I have seen'them, given in a parenthesis after 

 the habitat, or by an indication of the sources whence the description 

 has been derived. 



To my friend Mr. J. J. Bennett, the Head of the Botanical Depart- 

 ment of the British Museum, I am indebted for the important and 

 essential aid derived from the inspection of the Australian herbarium 

 of the late Egbert Brown. This extraordinary colleetion, the main 

 foundation of our knowledge of Australian vegetation, would be alone 

 sufficient to show the powers of observation, the sagacity, the zealj and 

 industry of that eminent man, dwelt upon by Dr. Hooker, in the above- 

 mentioned Essay. He seems during his short visits often almost to have 

 exhausted the Flora of the points he touched at ; his specimens are ga- 

 thered with great judgment, and there still remain in his herbarium, in 

 most cases, several of each species in an excellent state of preservation, 

 and detailed descriptive notes on them all were made at the time. These 

 specimens, now the property of Mr. Bennett, have been kindly brought 

 by him successively to the British Museum for ray use, where I have 



also been allowed to consult ]Mr. Brown's notes. Two or three small 

 parcels have been unfortunately mislaid, but of those I have in some 

 cases found specimens in a duplicate set laid out for the Banksian her- 

 barium. 



In the Banksian herbarium I have verified several species of which 



the types are there deposited, and inspected several of the original spe- 



cimens of Banks and Solanber, of which some, gathered above ninety 

 years back, have never yet been published. "Whilst at the British Mu- 

 seum, I should also gladly have availed myself of the valuable Australian 

 collections there lioarded, — and certainly nothing can exceed the obligirig 



* All the specimens esarained for the present work (often very numerous) arc marked 

 in the Ilookerian herbarium in red ink. 



