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12 



PREFACE. 



rHE ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF GARDENING aims at being the 

 best and most complete Work on Gardening and Garden Plants hitherto 



published. The aim is, indeed, a high one ; but the Publisher, whose taste 

 for Flowers has rendered the production a labour of love, has, on his part, 

 spared no expense that the Typography and Illustrations should be of a 

 very high class. It is to be hoped that earnest efforts to attain accuracy, by 

 consulting the best Authorities, combined with no small amount of original research, 

 have contributed to render the matter of the Work not unworthy of the form in 

 which it is presented to the reader. The large number of Illustrations is an 

 important feature ; and it is believed that the figures quoted, and the references 

 given to various works in which more detailed information is contained than is 

 desirable, or, indeed, possible, in these pages, on account of space will greatly add 

 to the interest and value of the work. Considerable trouble 'has been taken in 

 revising the tangled synonymy of many genera, and in clearing up, as much as 

 possible, the confusion that exists in garden literature in connection with so many 

 plants, popular and otherwise. In the matter of generic names, Bentham and 

 Hooker's recently-completed " Genera Plantarum " has, with few exceptions, been 

 followed ; that work being the one which will, for a long time to come, undoubtedly 

 remain the standard authority on all that relates to generic limitation. With regard 

 to the nomenclature of species, I have endeavoured to consult the latest and most 

 trustworthy Monographs and Floras, and to adopt the names in accordance with them. 

 Now and then, certain plants are described under their common garden names ; but 

 they will, in such cases, be also found mentioned under the genus to which they really 

 belong. A case in point may be cited : Ancectochilus Lowii is given under Anoeo 

 tochiluft, but the name it must now bear is Dossinia, and a reference to that genus 

 will explain matters pretty fully, as far as the present state of knowledge goes. 



