130 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. [May, 



times to the present, but it will be a history of species, a Phyto- 

 pinax Britannica, which Dr. Pulteney was persuaded not to print 

 because it would have gratified only the " curious, critical bota- 

 nist," a vara avis in those days. The present series will embrace 

 every fact contained in Pulteney, not totidem verbis, but in sub- 

 stance ; together with the annals of the science in England, since 

 the introduction of the Linnsean system, with which event Dr. 

 Pulteney concludes his interesting narrative. This essay will 

 supply a desideratum in botanical literature, viz. a chronological 

 notice of the eminent botanists whose names are affixed to our 

 native plants as authorities or guarantees of native species, 

 whether such authors or observers be British or foreign. 



The origin of the names of plants, both scientific and verna- 

 cular, will be investigated both historically and etymologically ; 

 and the relations of our native species with the Floras of other 

 and distant lands, and with the plants recorded in the historians 

 and poets of ancient and modern times, will be satisfactorily dis- 

 played, 



A hundred years have passed away since the period when the 

 subject of Dr. Pulteney^s work terminates. It is now sixty 

 years since his work Avas published. Therefore it is not an un- 

 reasonable assumption, that a new work on the history of British 

 Botany would be encouraged. A continuation of the " Sketches " 

 is not proposed. They are rather too diffuse to meet with appro- 

 bation in this economical age. A condensed and comprehensive 

 treatise is wanted. That this want will be supplied, at the pre- 

 sent time and in the present form, will entirely depend on the 

 suffrages of those for whom alone it can have a permanent in- 

 terest, viz. the botanists of Great Britain and of her depen- 

 dencies. 



The present mode of publication is most conducive to its com- 

 pleteness and accuracy. As it will appear at intervals, there will 

 be opportunity for supplying whatever is defective, and of recti- 

 fying the accounts of the preceding, in the subsequent parts. 



But as a specimen or an example is always more satisfactory 

 than the most elaborate description of an undertaking, it is pro- 

 posed to give a brief notice of such of our native species as are 

 noticed by name in Holy Scripture, or to describe the relations 

 of our Flora with that of the Bible. This is beginning at the 

 very beginning ; for certainly we have no historical book of so 



