fXTRODUCTION. 



That part of the material world which hoars the name of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom, consists, like the Animal, of a vast multitude of species, whose 

 (i.iter and inner forms alike offer a prodigious diversity of modifications of 

 one common Bimple plan uf structure. Organic vesicles, usually extending 

 into tabes of various kinds, exclusively constitute what we call Vegetation : 

 but this simplicity of nature is attended by very complex details of 

 arrangement, as is shown in trees, whose framework is knit together by 

 countless myriads of such vesicles and tubes, entangled with an astonishing 

 iacy of simple arrangement. 



Any living combination whatsoever of such vesicles constitutes a plant : 

 hut as the combinations themselves are countless, so are the resulting 

 external forms ; for, although two or three words may suffice to ( spress 

 combinations whatsoever in their most general sense, as when the nan 

 thallus is given te the simplest expansion of ble matter, while all the 



more complex forms are included under the name of axis and its appen- 

 s, yet ingenuity is exhausted in the attempt to distinguish by appro- 

 priate terms the manifold external forms assumed by that axis and the 

 - which it bears. 



Hence it is that wherever the eye is directed it encounters an infinite 

 multitude of the most dissimilar forms of vegetation. Some ar< bore 



by the ocean in the form of leathery straps or thongs, or are collected into 

 pelagic meadows of vast extent : others crawl ever mines and illuminate 

 them with phosphorescent gleams. Rivers and tranquil waters teem with 

 green filament-, mud throw- up its gelatinous scum, the human lu 

 ulcers, and sordes of all sorts bring forth a living brood, timber crumbli 

 dust beneath insidious spawn, com crop- change to fetid soot, all matter in 

 decay is seen to teem with mouldy lite : and those filaments, thai Bcum-bred 

 Bpawn and mould, alike acknowledge a vegetable origin. The hark of 

 ancient trees is carpeted with velvet, their branches are hung with 

 beard tapestry, and microscopical scales overspread their leaves ; the fa 



■ i- Btained with ancient colours .1 with their own ■ 



to air; and those too are citizens of the great world of plant-. Heaths 

 and moors wave with a tough and wiry herbage, meadows an i with an 



emerald mantle, amidst which spring flowers of all hues and forms, bus 

 throw abroad their many-fashioned foliage, twini I ble over and choke 



them, above all wave the arms of the ancient forest, and tl - acknow- 



ledge the sovereignty of Flora. Their individual forms too change at 



h 



