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acknowledgement is made of their hearty and generous efforts to give 

 to the public a full and trustworthy account of the Flora of Suffolk. 

 The frequent references to their names throughout the work will show 

 .how largely they have assisted in extending our knowledge of the 

 County Botany. 



A very ancient Record of Suffolk Botany has recently been brought 

 to light through the investigations of our geologists. Buried for ages, 

 it has been in part re-discovered, and its inscriptions, well nigh oblitera- 

 ted, are being gradually deciphered, and are giving to this present age 

 a glimpse of the Flora of the past The researches of the Authors of 

 The Fenland, past and present, published in 1878, Impl. 8vo., furnish 

 general information of the trees and other vegetable remains of a past 

 age still preserved in our Fens. Information as to the remains of a 

 Flora of an age, much farther removed from our time, is being placed in 

 our hands by the geologists of the day. Remains of ancient plants have 

 been recovered from various geological deposits, and in many cases the 

 species have been identified, and their connection with the existing 

 Flora indicated. A list of the ascertained plants of Ancient Suffolk is 

 appended to this Flora. It is gathered from the papers of Messrs. Reid 

 and Ridley, Prof. Prestwich, Dr. J. E. Taylor, and Mr. F. J. Bennett, in 

 the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, Geological Magazine, and the 

 Records of the Norwich and Norfolk Natural History Society. R. B. 

 Leach, Esq., F.G.S., has also taken up this special branch of geological 

 research, and has kindly furnished us with the results of his labours. 

 With very few exceptions these species, of which remains have come 

 down from the great Ice Age and that which succeeded it, still survive 

 in the country ; and, so far as their evidence seems to go, they bear 

 witness to the permanence of species, and in no way countenance the 

 -development of one species from another. The latest light cast on the 

 Flora of our County tells us that the species and forms, with which we 

 are familiar, are identical with those which existed in ages immeasurably 

 distant from that in which we now live. Though every individual plant 

 has its own marked features, a family likeness is still preserved, and 

 their mutual relation witnessed by those characteristics which unite 

 them in groups or species. With an endless diversity in the individuals, 

 there is a well-preserved unity in the groups, which is continued from 

 age to age under the general laws of created life. 



