XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 



necessary Explanations, Index, &c. Altogether, a work so 

 inclusive might run up to four volumes of 500 pages each ; the 

 expense of printing which would be much too great for the 

 object sought ; besides the adverse consideration, that it would 

 never attain to a completion. The work cannot be undertaken 

 at all, unless under some plan which will reduce this terrible 

 length into the compass of a single volume at first, with a pos- 

 sible second for plants discarded from the first volume. Such 

 was the division of the plants into two categories, in lately 

 writing the three successive Parts of the * Compendium of 

 Cybele Britannica ; ' so that the two earlier Parts would have 

 formed a completed work of themselves, even although not 

 followed by a Third Part, nor this again by a ' Supplement.' 



In yet more lately treating of plant-distribution by secondary 

 provinces, or sub-provincial groups of counties, in that * Sup- 

 plement' to the last-named work, a closer condensation was 

 effected in a manner which cannot here be resorted to for the 

 counties. The needed condensation was there effected by 

 omitting references to personal or individual authorities, with 

 some few occasional exceptions, by resorting to the nos. 

 instead of the names of the sub -provinces, and by so placing 

 the little word "to" as to make it represent any continuous 

 series of nos. between the two extremes of 1 and 38. But in 

 this present work the object specially in view, is that of 

 recording the names of personal authorities or witnesses ; con- 

 nected also with the names of counties and vice-counties, lest 

 the longer series of 112 nos., instead of names for the latter, 

 should be found to over-tax and confuse memory in their 

 practical application. A reduced selection of the plants to be 

 treated, and a reduced selection of the counties to be nominally 

 enumerated for them, offer the only available modes for bringing 

 the work within the narrowed bulk of a single volume, to which 

 any second is unlikely to be added. 



A selection of the plants can be made by limiting them 

 to the more generally known and accepted species, whether 



