Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixi. (igi/), No 5 3 



the year 1861. The British portion is arranged according to 

 the sequence of species adopted in Druce's " List of British 

 Plants"; each box is labelled with Druce's numbers (Oxford, 

 January, IQ08), and with the numbers in the loth edition 

 of the " London Catalo'gue " ; the Continental portion 

 follows the sequence of Nyman's " Conspectus Floras 

 Europaeas " (Orebro, 1878- 1882), and its supplements (1883- 

 1890). The various numbers which occur on the labels, 

 etc., of individual plants are the numbers of Natural 

 Orders adopted in Balfour's "Class Book of Botany" (pub- 

 lished in 1859); thus 28 stands for Caryophyllaceas, 74 for 

 Leguminosas, 120 for Compositas, 161 for Labiate, 209 for 

 Salicaceas, 273 for Lichenes, etc. 



Non-localised plants have generally been destroyed, but 

 when any such are included it is either because their source was 

 expected to be traced, or because they furnished good charac- 

 ters of an infrequent form or species. Undated plants, though 

 undesirable, could not always be deleted when such excellent 

 examples as those issued in the " Flora Exsiccata Austro- 

 Hungarica " were sent out without any record of the month 

 or year of their collection. 



In the British portion of the herbarium a large use has 

 been made of printed labels recording the localities where the 

 plants were collected, and the surplus — often large — has been 

 distributed to botanists and botanical exchange clubs, in this 

 country and on the Continent. The principal aim sought was 

 to get together, from as many different localities as possible, 

 the common British and European species, rather than to accu- 

 mulate the less frequent plants. At the close of each season, 

 after supplying home wants, the rest of the plants were disr- 

 p'^'tched to Continental exchange clubs, which returned me 

 Continental species in exchange for British, lists of obtata, or 

 desiderata, being rarely exchanged on either side. 



Besides this feature of the growth of the herbarium, it has 

 been increased by purchase, especially of the published exsic- 

 cata of special groups of plants, or of selected European coun- 

 tries. When these exsiccata occur in the herbarium in duplicate 

 or triplicate, it has generally been through presentation, or by 

 purchase of other herbaria incorporated with my own. Some 

 species were duplicated intentionally on account of their excel- 

 lence; the scrappy character of others frequently necessitated 

 a double or larger supply ; while there were some that promptly 

 found their way to the fire for unreliability as to locality, or 

 fraud, or other circumstance. The sources from which most 

 of the plants have been drawn are summarised on pages ii to 

 16, but such summary does not profess to be a full record of its 

 varied sources. 



The British species, and named varieties and forms, in 

 Druce's "List," and the sequence of the sheets under each 

 species, follows the order of counties, or vice-counties, adopted 



