INTRODUCTION. 
dually became my wish as I went, to give (as far as I could) 
brief, salient, and easily recognisable pictures of the more en- 
tangled Alpines of the Huropean ranges,—species of which 
enthusiastic amateurs are always falling foul, and vainly 
referring to the information of handbooks which are either in- 
adequate, or else clothe their matter in such heavy fustian of 
technicalities that the inquirer goes away again disgusted and 
unenlightened, clogged with a crowd of details, instead of illumi- 
nated by one or two essential ones. Accordingly I have dealt 
drastically with such races as Phyteuma and Aronicum, so that 
the collector on the Alps may, as I hope, be able, with a glance 
or two, to know for certain what particular species he has found. 
Guidance, for instance, is especially needed among the “ acaulis” 
Gentians; such guidance I have tried perspicuously to give, in 
the hope that those who want to know, yet are saddened into 
indifference by a “rudis indigestaque moles” of botanical in- 
struction and terminology, may not find it beyond their power to 
give the one glance which will clearly enable them at once to 
differentiate their species, by noting whether the calyx segments 
be straight-sided and the leaves pointed or blunt. In other words, 
embedded in the bulk of this book may be found a useful flora of 
the Alps, at least in so far as beautiful and interesting Alpine 
species are in question (for I have not troubled my readers with 
the identification of weeds or dullards, such as none but the 
botanical enthusiast will be concerned to decipher). More than 
this, I hope that my selection of treasures may help to keep open 
the eyes of those who wander yet further afield, pointing the feet 
of the traveller in Greece or Spain or the Levant to everything of 
special merit that there occurs, and enabling him to recognise the 
beautiful identity of Convolvulus nitidus, Saxifraga erythrantha, 
Dianthus biflorus, or Macrotomia Cephalotes, whenever and wherever 
in his travels he may have the luck or the skill to happen on them. 
These, then, are the objects of this book: to help gardeners 
doubly by giving them information, from bed-rock, not only on 
all that they do grow, but on all that they may in future be offered 
(or ought, in any case, to long for, search out and demand) ; and 
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