PREFACE. XI 



pressed as they were considered out of place. There is, however, 

 a short but simple diagnosis of the plant given under each engrav- 

 ing which may be found useful to those persons who wish to gain 

 a slight knowledge of the different parts of the plant. With this 

 exception the book is written in the plainest possible practical 

 manner, it being the author's desire that anyone knowing the 

 alphabet might be able to take up the book and glean instruction 

 from it. 



Some time after the work was begun, the newspaper office was 

 burnt out. The fire not only destroyed several engravings, but 

 many specimens of economic plants out of the author's private 

 herbarium which could not readily be replaced. This, of course, 

 would have occasioned a very great delay in the work had not the 

 Director of the Sydney Botanical Gardens come to the rescue with 

 the loan of twelve specimens to make a new start. Indebtedness 

 is acknowledged also to Mr. K. H. Bennett, Yandembah, New 

 South Wales, for half-a-dozen specimens and notes thereon. 



With the exception of two, all the drawings have been made 

 from dried specimens and some of these were damaged in transit 

 from the interior to Sydney. Many of them were carried hundreds 

 of miles before they arrived and were, consequently, much dried 

 up. Such specimens, of course, had to be soaked in water to get 

 the outlines of the leaves, flowers, and fruits, and their true position 

 on the plant and great credit is due to Mr. Conrad Myers, the 

 artist, for the pains he has taken in delineating their true characters. 



The fact of this being the first time that most of the plants 

 described in this book have been illustrated lends additional value 

 to it. ' 



The nomenclature adopted is the same as that used in Bentham 

 and Mueller's "Flora Australiensis," and to every engraving there 

 is appended the volume and page in that incomparable work at 

 which a full scientific description of the plant is given, without 

 the aid of which the task would have been much more difficult to 

 accomplish. 



October, 1891. FRED. TURNER. 



