PREFACE. XIX 



had been previously laid down. Consequently, to avoid 

 offering anything hasty and unworthy of the High School, 

 and yet to avoid withdrawing this essay from the des- 

 tination to which it had been as a labour of love devoted, 

 there remained nothing else, but to make it follow the 

 invitation to the celebration of the Royal birthday, as a 

 subsequent secondary tribute. The reasons why it has 

 been delayed until now, lie partly in the manifold re- 

 tardations through current official duties, and partly in the 

 nature of the subject itself, which claimed more time 

 and space in the elaboration of the details, than could be 

 guessed in the original project. For, in the publica- 

 tion of phenomena as yet little known, the examples 

 cited could not well be mentioned without an exact 

 account of personal observations, which rendered neces- 

 sary repeated diffusive episodes, in which both the vo- 

 taries of the Morphology and Anatomy of Plants, and 

 Physiologists in particular, will find many novelties. 

 Where I have depended on the observations of others, 

 the sources are conscientiously mentioned ; I connected 

 with this point also the design, to point out to the young 

 who are just entering the realms of Science, who, more- 

 over, were especially kept in view throughout the whole 

 exposition of the chosen subject, the authors who deserve 

 confidence, and from whose writings may be discerned, 

 not only the present state of Scientific Botany, but the 

 problems growing out of this, which will next require 

 to be solved. I had greatly desired to be able to add 

 numerous illustrative plates to this treatise, but I have 

 omitted doing so, in order to avoid further delaying its 

 publication. For the same reason I am obliged to give 

 up, for the present, the appendix which formed part of 



