Preface 



it can generally be expressed in perfectly plain and 

 simple language. Doctrines that have to hide themselves 

 in the decent obscurity of bad Latin and suspicious 

 Greek often seem neither at all novel nor particularly 

 interesting when translated into the simple Anglo-Saxon. 



But the process of translation is both dangerous and 

 difficult. It is not only because the subjects often 

 resemble the great text in Galatians in which twenty- 

 nine distinct and different interpretations led to the 

 most deplorable results, but it is really impossible to be 

 quite impartial. 



That would produce a cold and inhuman treatment 

 which would certainly interest nobody. I have often 

 had to adopt one theory out of many clamouring com- 

 petitors. It is in the reader's interest that I have done 

 so, not because I was unaware of the danger of errors 

 and omissions. 



I must apologise also to many authors for much that 

 should and would have been inserted had I only known 

 of its existence in time. An extraordinary number of 

 books of the first importance appeared in the interval 

 between printing and publication. The English edition 

 of Warming's " CEcology " and Seward's " Darwin and 

 Modern Thought " were not seen by me until it was too 

 late to make any alteration. 



In spite of what is euphoniously called the "litera- 

 ture " of botany, the labourers in the great World's 

 Garden are still few and widely scattered. There is 

 still opportunity for every kind of helper, and none can 

 be safe in neglecting the most interesting of all the 

 sciences. 



G. F. SCOTT ELLIOT. 



June lydy 1909. 



Vll 



