XIV INTRODUCTION. 



the information it has been my earnest wish to impart. 

 While I am fully aware that my opportunities have been 

 exceptionally favourable to the acquiring of information 

 from the best sources, I am also sensible of many dis- 

 abilities in myself for authorship, which should, perhaps, 

 have deterred me from its responsibilities. With refer- 

 ence to this, however, I may say that, as literature is not 

 my profession, I am more concerned for the fate of my 

 clients than the fate of my advocacy of their cause ; and 

 I trust that their well-founded claims on the attention and 

 regard of all true lovers of flowers may be established, 

 notwithstanding the weakness of the advocate. 



In passing on to general introductory details, it may 

 not be amiss to inquire, at the outset, what is meant by 

 the terms herbaceous and alpine plants. At local Jiortns 

 shows there not unfrequently occur disputes as to what 

 is meant by the word Herbaceous ; some holding, for 

 instance, that bulbs and general hardy LiliacecB are not 

 herbaceous, but bulbs ; and others holding as stoutly 

 that they are as much so as any of the Rannnciilacece. 

 The latter are right, and the former can only be justified 

 in excluding bulbs from the category of herbaceous 

 plants if they provide a separate class for them in their 

 schedules, and prominently announce their ineligibility 

 to compete in other classes of herbaceous plants. Broad- 

 ly stated, herbaceous plants are those which make an 

 annual development of stem of one year's duration only. 

 The root ma}^ be annual, biennial, or perennial, but when 

 the stem has fulfilled its functions, it dies in either case, 

 and, in perennials, is produced and decays annually from 

 the same root. In this book the plants are not all strictly 

 herbaceous that are selected ; but the exceptions, and the 



