ee PREFACE. 
pulse which its beauty and simplicity communicated, calling thousands of enthnsiastic. ae 
ries into the field, by whose joint labours was collected the vast mass of valuable materials of 
which the more philosophical natural method was constructed, leaving altogether out of eee 
deration, the justly admired nomenclature and precision of language appropriated to the : es- 
cription of plants introduced by its author, the universally acknowledged father of modern 
Botany, Linneus. 
which, until thus concentrated was of difficult access and, when obtained, only applicable to the 
species to which it originally appertained in place of as now, by affording so many points of 
comparison or known quantities, enabling us to deduce useful applications, of hitherto unknown 
plants, simply on the ground of their structural relationship or affinity in the system of nature 
to others, the qualities of which are well known. 
That many anomalies nay positive contradictions occur in our present groups is undeni- 
able, but it is equally certain that many of these are disappearing under the more rigid scrutiny 
of structural peculiarities, which have often shown, that the most striking departures from the 
general rule, were attributable, not to imperfections of the rule itself, but to erroneous associa- 
tions of plants, either only remotely or not at all allied, in the Same groups, 
The objects of this work may now be briefly summed up, they are first to explain the prin- 
ciples of grouping plants according to their natural affinities and illastrating these by figures of 
species appertaining to each group: and secondly, to show by adducing a variety of examples of 
the fact, that, ina great majority of instances similarity of structure, or Botanic 
is accompanied with similarity of properties, and lastly, to prove that these premises lead to the 
inference that having ascertained by careful exam 
relatives, the properties of which are known, we 
imperfectly known plant. In addition to these 
nd noting every page where it occurs, By this 
to trace a family through all the relations, whether 
botanical, economical or medical, in which it occurs in these pages. 
How far I have succeeded in my endeay 
determine, but I think I may safely assume that if I have failed the failure is attri 
nd not to want of diligence in seeking for appropri- 
My object throughout has 
SES , See eS 
aS ae a ee ee pe Shakes 
