only intended as a guide to larger and more comprehensive 

 ^vorks, but he trusts, at the same time, that it will be found to 

 contain everything which the student of botany really requires, 

 whether he is pursuing it as a branch of professional or general 

 education, or for pleasure and recreation. 



The vast number of facts, observations, and terms necessarily 

 treated of, in the departments of Structural, Morphological, and 

 Systematic Botany, have compelled the author to give but a brief 

 account of the Physiology of Plants ; he hopes, however, that 

 even here, all the more important subjects bearing upon the 

 education of the medical practitioner and pharmaceutist will be 

 found sufficiently comprehensive. To those who require a more 

 complete knowledge of this department he would refer them to 

 tlie Second Part of Balfour's Class-Book of Botany, in which 

 Aaluable Avork full details upon Physiological Botany will be 

 found. 



The author had a great desire also, to include in the present 

 volume, an Appendix upon Descriptive Botany, and a Glossary 

 of Botanical Terms, but the manual having already exceeded 

 the limits desired, he is unable to do so. The index itself, 

 will, however, serve as a glossary by referring to the pages 

 in whicli the different terms are defined and explained ; and 

 with regard to Descriptive Botany, the author would especially 

 recommend every reader of this work to obtain a small but 

 very valuable work on that subject which has been recently 

 pubUshed by Dr. Lindley. 



In compiling this volume the author has been necessarily 

 compelled to refer to many works and original memoirs on 

 botanical science, and he hopes that in all cases he has given 

 full credit to the different authors for the assistance they have 

 afforded him. If he has omitted to do so in any instance, it has 

 arisen from inadvertence and not from design. To the valuable 

 works of Molil, Jussieu, Schleiden, Mulder, Hofmeister, Asa 

 Gray, and Schacht, amongst foreign botanists; and to those of 

 Lindley, Balfour, Hcnfrey, Hooker, Berkley, Pereira, and Royle, 

 amongst British botanists, he begs to express his obligations. 

 To my friend, Mr. Daniel Ilanbury, I am also indebted for some 

 valuable information communicated during the progress of the 



