54 EXTENT OF THE WORK. 



British Flowering Plants, in six volumes, 8vo. The Free Library at 

 Camp-field contains all three, and there is a copy of Curtis also at the 

 Chetham Library, bound in six volumes. Our pages thus become a 

 little "Art-Treasures Exhibition Catalogue," so far as concerns Botany 

 and the beauties of nature, " Curtis " and " Sowerby " taking the 

 place of " Saloon A" and " Saloon B ; " and art-treasures the pictures 

 really are, especially those in Curtis, which should always be con- 

 sulted first, on account of the full-length portraits. These works 

 contain a variety of information respecting the plants they picture, 

 and what more may be desired, can be gleaned from the " English 

 Flora" of Sir J. E. Smith, the " British Flora" of Sir W. J. Hooker, 

 and the famous old "Arrangement of British Plants" by Withering, 

 the last-named a complete history of their domestic and medicinal 

 uses. Evei-ything about trees may be read in Loudon's " Arboretum 

 Britannicum," at Camp-field. 



As regards the Species included in the work, though persuaded 

 that many are not genuine, I have thought it best not to omit them, 

 but to insert and say what they are. Those which are no longer 

 found growing in our neighbourhood, ngr likely to reappear, are men- 

 tioned as historic only, and doubtful ones and garden runagates in 

 parenthesis. The disappearance of a plant from a given station does 

 not imply that it is absolutely lost, except under special circumstances. 

 Seeds often lie dormant in the ground, and the plant comes up again 

 after a time, as frightened animals feign death to escape the hunter, 

 and when the danger is past, jump up and run away. Doubtless 

 several plants are now entirely lost to the neighbourhood, but their 

 places have been supplied by others. Flora is always on the alert to 

 repair injuries, and if building, cultivation, and the selfish rapacity of 

 collectors, take away some, others are supplied in a few years. There 

 are at least a dozen plants now growing wild near Manchester that 

 thirty years ago were strangers. Everything is put down that is 

 known to occur within eighteen miles, and any species or locality 

 I am not well assured of, either personally, or by some intimate 

 companion, is assigned to its authority, the names, when not inserted 

 at length, being abbreviated as follows : — 



James Percival, jun. (Prestwich) .1. I'. 



Kiclianl Haniiison ( Little. Hulton) E. H. 



.fohn Shaw ( Eci^les) I. S. 



.Fosepli Kvaris ( Hoothstown) ). E, 



liuxton's " Guide " B. G. 



