VI PREFACE. 



The Author's aim has been to write a book that, whilst it 

 satisfied the rambler who merely wishes to identify the flowers 

 by his path, might also serve as a stepping-stone to the floras 

 of Hooker, Bentham, and Boswell-Syme ; so that should the 

 interest of any reader be sufficiently awakened he may take up 

 the more serious study of either of these authors without 

 having to unlearn what this modest pocket-book may have 

 taught him. At the same time he will here find information on 

 many points of great interest, such as are rarely, if ever, 

 noticed in the " Floras." 



When it is stated that the "London Catalogue of British 

 Plants " meaning only the flowering plants and ferns 

 includes nearly 1,700 species, it will be understood that an in- 

 expensive work for the pocket of the rambler can only give 

 figures of a few of these ; but the Author has tried to so use 

 the 1 80 plants delineated that they may serve as a key to a 

 much greater number of species. He regrets that technical 

 difficulties connected with colour-printing and binding have 

 made it impossible to carry out his original plan of grouping 

 the plants according to their natural affinities ; instead, he 

 has had to arrange them more in seasons, a course which, 

 after all, may be preferred by the rambler, who will thus find 

 in contiguous pages the flowers he is likely to meet in the 

 course of one ramble. The more scientifically inclined may 

 find the species enumerated in the Natural Orders at the end 

 of the work (page 153). 



Several of the black and white figures are of trees which are 

 not natives, but from the frequency with which they are now 

 planted in woods and parks the question of their identity is 



