PREFACE. V 



By its means also the evil effects of the system of loading the 

 memory with secondhand information of no use whatever outside 

 the walls of the examination-room, and indeed of but little service 

 in the practical examinations (now happily instituted at the Uni- 

 versity of London and elsewhere) may be avoided. 



In the present edition the additions to the Morphological chap- 

 ters have been chiefly taken from the writings of Braun, Baillon, 

 Eichler, Warming, Van Tieghem, and others. In this department 

 the Editor has also to acknowledge the valuable assistance ren- 

 dered him by the Eev. George Henslow, particularly in the sections 

 relating to phyllotaxis and aestivation. 



In the arrangement of the Natural Orders the plan adopted by 

 Bentham and Hooker in their invaluable ' Genera Plantarum ' has 

 been followed so far as that work extends. 



The account of the Cryptogamia has been revised, and that con- 

 cerning the Fungi written afresh by Mr. George Murray, of the 

 Botanical Department of the British Museum, to whom the Editor 

 would here offer his cordial acknowledgments. 



The Physiological Section has been mostly rewritten, and much 

 has been added to it. Use has been made of Sachs' ' Handbuch 

 der Experimental Physiologie der Pflanzen'; of the English and 

 French translations of the ' Lehrbuch/ of the same author the 

 former published under the superintendence of Messrs. Bennett 

 and Thiselton Dyer, the latter under that of M. Van Tieghem, 

 whose version is enriched with numerous original notes. In 

 addition, the Editor has availed himself of Duchartre's * Elements 

 de Botanique,' Deherain's ' Cours de Chimie Agricole/ and more 

 especially of numerous recent original memoirs published by Bous- 

 singault, Darwin, Trecul, Pfeffer, Janczewski, Coren winder, Van 



