VI PREFACE. 



his friends, which he has arranged according to the 

 best and latest improvements in the science. 



The object of this work is to provide the student 

 with a series of Botanical Excursions, all of which are 

 within thirty miles of the Metropolis. 



The Author regrets that other demands upon his 

 time have prevented him from paying so much attention 

 to Essex and Middlesex as he has done to Surrey and 

 Kent, but he flatters himself he has collected and ar- 

 ranged the data (occasionally from other authorities) in 

 such a form as will be found serviceable to the student. 

 It must not be supposed that he may go to any of the 

 following localities, for example Wimbledon Common, at 

 any period of the season and find every plant that is 

 mentioned as growing there by no means the deve- 

 lopement and time of flowering of plants, is greatly 

 influenced by the peculiarities of the season, whether 

 warm or cold, &c. It cannot indeed be expected that an 

 individual walking even quietly and carefully over any 

 one of the localities subsequently mentioned, would by 

 chance perceive in one excursion every plant that is there 

 enumerated. Many plants, (as the Addenda will show), 

 have been overlooked, even though Wimbledon Common 

 has been visited by the Author upwards of thirty times, 

 during the last three years, 



