783 



experience the fatal effects of this sneering at true knowledge : we 

 have repeatedly heard conceited young men assert, with evident feel- 

 ings of self-satisfaction, that " they did not study species, they only 

 sought to investigate principles." 



In the compilation of his work Mr. Watson has experienced great 

 difficulty in obtaining the required data, from the impossibility of de- 

 pending on the accuracy of the authors of both printed and written 

 lists: there is scarcely a species (except those of such universal oc- 

 currence as not to have been recorded at all) which has not recorded 

 habitats manifestly at variance with all probability ; and Mr. Wat- 

 son's task of sifting the true from the false or doubtful has truly been 

 a most laborious one ; yet, in determining geographical distribution 

 this information is the sine qua non of the philosophical botanist. 



The connexion of the subjects are thus pointed out by Mr. 

 Watson : — 



" Though a knowledge of plants, and a knowledge of their geogra- 

 phical relations, may be deemed two distinct subjects of study, yet 

 they were perhaps never wholly disjoined, and there is now certainly 

 an increasing tendency to bring them into closer connexion. On the 

 one side, indeed, it is impossible to disconnect the two kinds of 

 knowledge. The technical botanist often knows species sufficiently 

 well in the herbarium or the garden, although understanding ex- 

 tremely little about their geographical relations ; but the botanical 

 geographer cannot remain unacquainted with species, while investi- 

 gating their distribution. The latter takes a march forward, beyond 

 the ground of the technical describer, or the student of species ; and 

 before he can do so, he must first pass over that ground; tarrying 

 upon it awhile, to make himself acquainted with species, their names 

 and synonymes, and their technical classifications. 



" Bearing in mind, then, that the study of geographical relations is 

 an advance onward, which cannot be successfully made, unless a fair 

 knowledge of species has been previously acquired, it becomes easy 

 to explain why the distribution of plants has hitherto attracted only 

 a very small share of attention from the botanists of Britain. The 

 great — the very great majority have never attempted or wished to go 

 beyond the ground first occupied. Whether their attention has been 

 restricted to the comparatively narrow field of British Botany, or 

 whether it has ranged widely over the Flora of the whole earth ; — 

 whether it has been directed to favourite groups of plants, or whether 

 it has sought to compass the whole vegetable world ; in either of 

 these cases, sufficient mental interest and employment have usually 



