INTRODUCTORY. 



No apology for endeavouring to give a first fairly full 

 account of the plants of the East Riding of Yorkshire 

 is needed. Plants are always interesting and beautiful, 

 to say nothing about their economic value and the exquisite 

 pleasure and instruction to be derived from their observation, 

 collection, and study. So they will continue to command 

 attention and loving appreciation as long as they are borne 

 on the warm bosoni of Mpther Earth. Flora, the goddess of 

 flowers and the springtime, has still her votaries, as amongst 

 the old Romans, now quite beyond suspicion, we trust, and 

 guiltless of the extravagant demonstrations that greeted her 

 of old. That students and lovers of plants and their lore 

 have come to speak of vegetation, taken collectively for any 

 particular area, as "the flora," after the name of their 

 titular deity, is not much to be wondered at ; and the tertiary 

 meaning of the word — a written compilation of the plants of 

 a district with various items of interest thereon — has, by a 

 very common figure of speech, come into use. For the sake 

 of brevity, then, we shall henceforth use the word flora chiefly 

 in the secondary sense, whilst the compilation which completes 

 this essay will be "The Flora of the East Riding of the 

 County of York." 



Both of the other Ridings — the North and West, in- 

 cluding the Ainsty — have had botanical exponents in Mr. 

 J. G. Baker, and Dr. F. A. Lees (Leeds) respectively, whose 

 Floras are amongst the very best of all local works of the 

 kind. No Flora, however, of the East Riding has hitherto 

 been published, and how such an extent of country — 750,055 

 acres — larger than several English counties, should have 

 been so long neglected in this respect, is a matter of consider- 

 able surprise. Many things else have had able treatment^ 



B 



