POSTSCRIPT 



BY 



HENRY JOHN ELWES, F.R.S. 



AND 



AUGUSTINE HENRY, M.A. 



In the Introduction to the first volume of this work, published in 1906, we stated the 

 objects which we had in view, and which, during the seven years which have now 

 elapsed, we have endeavoured to carry out to the best of our power. If the patience 

 of our Subscribers has been unduly taxed, we can only say that the magnitude of the 

 task which we set before us was even then hardly realised ; and that the difficulty of 

 discovering, identifying, describing, and figuring the rare and remarkable trees in 

 Great Britain is one which grew with our knowledge, and with each succeeding 

 volume. The want of order in this work, on which some of our reviewers have 

 remarked, has been really of the greatest service ; for by leaving the more difficult 

 and little-known genera to the last, we have been able to make the work more 

 complete and accurate than it would have been if every genus had been taken 

 in its accepted botanical sequence ; and though a few additions may be made to 

 the earlier volumes, we know of no really important omissions in them. 



Though some local botanists and arboriculturists have studied the native trees 

 of their own counties with more or less care, British botanists, until recently, 

 have taken little notice of the trees which form so conspicuous a feature in the 

 vegetation and scenery of England ; and in many counties, whose flora, birds, and 

 insects have been most carefully and accurately studied by local naturalists, we 

 have found no one who, apparently, knew or cared for the trees, and have had to 

 depend largely on our own observations. 



An immense quantity of foreign as well as British literature has been referred 

 to, as evidenced by almost every page of the work ; but a general bibliography 

 seems unnecessary, as the references are fully given ; as well as the authority for 

 nearly every fact, opinion, or observation not made by ourselves. 



As it is possible that in the future, questions may arise as to the correct 

 nomenclature of some of the numerous trees that we have described and figured, 

 it is well to say that the herbarium accumulated by us in the course of our work 

 is preserved at Cambridge and at Kew, so that the actual specimens from which 



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