Xiv INTRODUCTION. 



To ascertain the names of plants from books, 

 which requires careful study, is always the best 

 when it can be clone ; but this is sometimes a matter 

 of great difficulty, and even expert botanists frequently 

 make mistakes. Some species require to be examined 

 at different seasons of the year, and it does not 

 always happen that a single person can obtain the 

 necessary specimens. He may gather a plant far 

 from home in flower, which will not enable him to 

 determine its species, and he may not have an 

 opportunity of collecting the same plant in fruit. 

 Hence it happens that in many instances, though 

 there are most-carefully arranged artificial keys to 

 help the student to the name of a plant that he may 

 find, as in Bentham's 'Handbook of the British 

 Flora' and Grindon's 'British and Garden Botany,' 

 he is unable to trace it. In such a case I know no 

 better plan than to get some one to give the informa- 

 tion. It is better, I think, to obtain the name of a 

 plant by any means, than to lay it on one side with 

 the idea of finding it out oneself at some future 

 time, which may never come. 



I have not attempted to include all the names 

 that have been given for British plants in my list, 

 but have endeavoured to select those which are now 

 in general use, and which may be met with in the 

 most recent standard works. I know of no acknow- 

 ledged standard to which we might refer in order to 

 ascertain which out of two, three, or four, is the 

 proper name of a British plant, as though there are 



