INTRODUCTORY. 



(Issued with Part I.) LIBRARY 



iSEW YORK 



"^ BOTANICAL 



GARDEN 



ONE principal object of this Handbook is to enable 

 observers in Ceylon to ascertain the name of any 

 plant they may find growing wild. When this is arrived 

 at, they are in a position to learn all that may have been 

 written about it in botanical and other literature, to appre- 

 ciate its relationships with other plants, to trace its dis- 

 tribution in other lands, and to intelligently investigate its 

 properties and uses. 



The analytic Keys and descriptions here given for this 

 purpose require for their use a general knowledge of the 

 outside anatomy and structure of the principal organs 

 of plants and of the terms in use for defining and dis- 

 tinguishing their different parts and modifications. This 

 knowledge can be readily obtained from any elementary 

 work on Botany, and is here presupposed. The descriptions 

 are, however, as little technical as I can make them con- 

 sistently with accuracy. 



The book refers to Ceylon on/y. In the definitions of 

 the Natural Orders and Genera it must be distinctly under- 

 stood that the distinguishing characters here given for each 

 group do not include the whole of those which belong to 

 it, but such only as are shown by the species found in 

 Ceylon. It is especially necessary to bear this in mind in 

 using this Handbook for educational purposes ; for it may 

 so happen that the Ceylon members of a particular Order 

 or Genus are more or less exceptional, and in that case 

 thendefinition given will be by no means characteristic of 

 th^ group as a whole. 



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