PREFACE. 



THE object of this work is to supply students and field-botanists with 

 a fuller account of the Plants of the British Islands than the manuals 

 hitherto in use aim at giving. 



For the number and kinds of plants introduced as composing the 

 British Flora proper, I have been guided by the " London Catalogue of 

 British Plants," 6th ed., 1867 ; being fully satisfied that I should thus best 

 serve the interests of British Botany. The difficult task of determining 

 which of the many doubtfully indigenous or naturalized plants should be 

 regarded as British by adoption or otherwise, or the reverse, has in the 

 successive editions of this Catalogue been settled by tbe two Bota- 

 nists most competent to form an opinion, not only by many years of 

 research and thorough knowledge, but also by matured judgment in 

 such matters; Messrs. H. C. Watson and J. Boswell Syme. It is 

 true that I may think some of the species they have introduced have less 

 claims than some they have rejected, but this applies to very few cases 

 indeed. I have included but one species that is not in the Catalogue, 

 Claytvnia perfoliata, very lately but certainly now established as a 

 colonist. 



The Ordinal, Generic, and Specific characters have been rewritten, and 

 are to a great extent original, and drawn from living or dried specimens 

 or both. After working them out, I have also consulted the usual British 

 and Continental Floras, and collated the descriptions throughout with 

 Mr. Syme's Edition of English Botany (to the end of Oyperacds}, of the 



