PREFACE. 



IT will be obvious, on a cursory examination, that this Work 

 has been the amusement of its Author. Having, on his en- 

 trance into business, much unoccupied time, a portion of it 

 could not, he thought, be better employed, than in enlarging 

 that knowledge of Natural History, which, when a student, it 

 had been his duty to acquire, and which has always, and never 

 more so than at the present time, been deemed a necessary 

 part of the education of a physician. For this purpose he began 

 to examine, with some care, the indigenous plants of the neigh- 

 bourhood, and the catalogue made of his discoveries gradually 

 assumed a form which, he perhaps too fondly believes, may 

 without presumption be submitted to the friends of Botany. 



The chief object of the book is to give such a description of 

 the plants growing wild in the vicinity of Berwick, as may 

 enable any one acquainted with the elements of the science, to 

 ascertain the names by which they are known ; and it will like- 

 wise serve as a guide to conduct the inquirer to the places 

 where the rarer species are to be found. The utility of a work 

 of this kind, consists in its facilitating the investigation of species 

 to those resident within the limits of which it treats, by les- 

 sening the objects of comparison ; while others may find in it 

 some facts illustrative of the geographical distribution of our 



