viii PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



wise stated or implied, from my own observation of 

 them in this country. I have been scrupulously careful 

 not to set down any plant as to be met with in India, 

 of the existence of which there I have not had positive 

 knowledge. On the other hand, if there are some 

 plants occasionally to be found in gardens of which I 

 have failed to give account, in most cases it has been 

 because I have not considered them sufficiently orna- 

 mental to merit a place there ; some few possibly may 

 have escaped me. 



I should be very remiss were I not in this place to 

 name Mr. Robert Scott, of the Government Botanical 

 Gardens, as one to whom I am under very considerable 

 obligations for the liberal and unreserved way in which 

 he has always supplied me with particulars respecting 

 any plant about which I have made inquiry. To Mr. 

 A. H. Blechynden, likewise, the able and courteous 

 Secretary of the Agri-Horticultural Society, I have 

 here to tender my best thanks for the kind aid and 

 encouragement he has uniformly afforded me during 

 the progress of this work. 



There remain now only a few words to add with 

 respect to the general arrangement I have adopted. 

 For the convenience of reference, the ornamental an- 

 nuals have been kept in a group separate from plants 

 of perennial duration. For the same reason the nut 

 and fruit-bearing plants have been placed in groups 

 apart from each other. The classification followed is 



