yi PREFACE. 
5. A few letters and drafts of letters from and to botanists and 
others. It is from these that the foregoing notes have been extracted. 
The MSS. were all in a most confused and dirty state, as if they 
had been gathered up at his death and put into the box in which I 
received them. 
I have given the specimens, together with the drawings mounted 
and bound in six large volumes, to the British Museum, and I in- 
tend that the MSS. shall follow as soon as I can get them into some 
kind of order. 
I have here printed one fragment of the ‘ Genera Plantarum’ ex- 
actly as it was left by the author, for the purpose of showing the 
kind of work that he intended to produce; and I have chosen this 
portion because it is one that he seems to have taken much pains 
with, There are no less than three copies, or rather editions, of it, 
written in his very neat hand. 
In order to secure the exact impression of the MS., I desired 
that no proof-sheets should be sent to me, but that the whole work 
of revision should be limited to securing a faithful reproduction of 
the MS. in the state in which it was left by the author. I now 
find, on looking over the complete impression, that there are a few 
bitter personal expressions which perhaps it might have been de- 
sirable to expunge; but as so many years have elapsed, and the 
writers attacked can no longer be hurt by their appearance, there 
seems no sufficient reason for mutilating the MS. by their exclusion. 
I scarcely need to say that on these points I have no feelings in com- 
mon with the author. 
JOHN EDWARD GRAY, 
British Museum, 
March 1, 1866. 
