XIV 



It seems desirable in this place to notice some inaccuracies which 

 occurred in the Preface last year and which require correction. 



Carduus setosus, ii. 31, and Cirsium setosutti, ii. 441, are of course 

 synonymous : this double record occurred through the list of 

 novelties being the work of two pens, the first of which gave 

 one name and reference, the second another : the error was 

 not discovered until too late to amend it: all botanists con- 

 sider the plant a variety of C. arvensis. 



Cnicus oleraceus, ii. 53. The record of this plant having been 

 found by Dr. Brorafield in the Isle of Wight is erroneous : 

 the species is not admitted by our botanists as British. 



To myself it is always a source of pecular satisfaction to receive 

 those simple and unassuming records of which the authors themselves 

 often doubt the value, and which would assuredly be rejected from 

 more pretending journals : that Trifolium strictum grows at the 

 Land's End, Allium spha^rocephalum at Bristol, Lycopodium anno- 

 tinum in Cumberland, and therefore all three in England, are facts of 

 little importance to mankind generally, but to the British botanist, 

 and for him especially this unpretending journal was established, they 

 are of greater interest than a hundred Latin descriptions of antipodal 

 species, which, should he live far beyond the age wisely allotted us, 

 he will never see, and never again hear of or read of. I earnestly 

 solicit my readers never to omit recording facts like those I have cited, 

 in the fear that they may be deemed unwelcome or unimportant : I 

 earnestly beg of them to transmit the earliest possible notice of such 

 facts, and in cases of doubt rather to accompany the communication 

 with a specimen for confirmation, than cause delay by endeavouring 

 to understand an indifierent description or unravel a confused syno- 

 nymy : such specimens shall always be returned if required, the motive 

 in making the request being to save the writer and the * Phytologist ' 

 from the imputation of error. 



Once more I beg to offer my warmest thanks to contributors and 

 subscribers, especially to those who have by their kind advocacy in- 



