11 INTRODUCTION. 



reader were familiar with simply the outward appearance 

 of the examples quoted : just as we take greater interest 

 in accounts of astronomical discoveries, if we have seen 

 and handled a telescope, than if we had merely had one 

 described to us, no matter with what accuracy and 

 minuteness. The reader, then, or, inasmuch as even the 

 elementary knowledge of a science can only be attained 

 by study, the student who wishes to make this volume 

 practically useful in enabling him to find out the names 

 of our common wild flowers, is recommended to read 

 with care and attention the following pages, into which 

 the Author has -introduced nothing but what is essential 

 to the proper understanding of the body of the work, 

 and so to the attainment of his object. 



Before a novice can commence the study of any 

 science, he must make himself acquainted with the terms 

 employed by writers on that science ; he must not be 

 frightened if things new to him should have strange 

 names. Unmeaning and hard to be remembered they 

 must appear to him at first, but this will be only as long 

 as they remain mere sounds. When he has gained a 

 knowledge of the things for which they stand, they will 

 lose their formidable appearance, and, hard as they may 

 still be to pronounce, they will very soon become 

 familiar to the mind, if not to the tongue. In a scien- 

 tific treatise on Botany, taken in its widest sense, these 

 terms must of necessity be very numerous. Not so, 

 however, with a popular description of the plants grow- 

 ing wild in a single country of limited extent; the 

 Author, therefore, has endeavoured to keep technical 

 terms as much as possible out of sight, in the hope that 

 the lover of Nature may be beguiled into forming an 

 acquaintance with the outward appearance of the plants 

 of his neighbourhood, and eventually be induced to 

 study their characters, or to extend his researches 

 beyond the limits of his own country. He has, conse- 

 quently, avoided the use of Latin words wherever 

 English ones would do as well, and has often preferred 



