PREFACE, 



THE general division of Scotland into Highlands and Lowlands 

 is in itself sufficiently indicative of the nature of the country, and 

 of its aptness to the purposes of Natural History. The Lowlands, 

 adjoining the English frontier, present an extensive and level range 

 of the most fertile corn-fields, interspersed with moist woods, 

 and occasional tracts of barren heath. In a surface thus diversi- 

 fied, and also containing a correspondent variety of soil, the bo- 

 tanist will meet with the greater number of the plants peculiar to 

 the southern districts of Great Britain ; while the mountains and 

 rocks of the Highlands furnish a considerable number of others, 

 for which search has in vain been made in any other part of the 

 United Kingdom. 



Such a country, though happily now forming an undivided 

 portion of the empire, is of itself so naturally separate, and was 

 so long regarded politically so, that there can scarcely be raised 

 a question as to how far it deserves the distinction of having a 

 volume dedicated expressly to the elucidation of its vegetable 

 productions. In England, as well as upon the continent, the ad- 

 Vantage of partial Floras has been generally recognised $ they sup- 

 ply the natives of peculiar districts with the means of examining 

 and ascertaining the plants of their vicinity at a comparatively 

 small expense 5 they furnish an important contribution to vege- 

 table geography > and they record a multitude of facts which 

 would otherwise escape observation ; as well as contain in many 

 instances more laboured and more minute descriptions than can 

 be admitted into works of more extensive range* 



Sibbald, as early as the year 1684, published his Scotia lllus- 

 trata, sive Prodromus Historice Naturalis Scotice^ in two small 

 folio volumes, the second of which was devoted exclusively to 

 plants. This work was shortly afterwards attacked with severe 

 invectives, which he met with a Findici<e contra Prodromomas* 



