PREFACE. 



been deterred from Botany, believing it to be only a 

 detail of minute characters and difficult terms, this trifle 

 may show them that it may be made subservient to high 

 moral and religious uses. 



These important purposes I have endeavoured to ac- 

 complish, by giving a plain scientific and popular de- 

 scription of all our Common Wild Plants; accompanying 

 these with accurate Steel Engravings of every species ; 

 and introducing such Anecdotes, Remarks, and Extracts, 

 as the various subjects have suggested : thus striving to 

 win rather than to demand the attention, and to present 

 these little favorites in the alluring garb with which 

 Nature has herself invested them, rather than in the 

 mysterious and repulsive habit in which they are too 

 often described. ; To smooth as much as possible the 

 study of Botany, the Work is introduced by an account 

 of the Linnsean System, and the rules for collecting, 

 drying, and naming Plants in general, accompanied 

 with a full Glossary of all the terms employed. It ter- 

 minates with Three Indexes, and an Appendix of the 

 more difficult tribes of Flowering Plants, and of all the 

 Cryptogamic Orders. 



How these objects have been accomplished Botanists 

 will best determine. I cannot expect that all of them will 

 agree in calling such plants as are described the com- 

 monest which Britain produces ; on the contrary, perhaps 

 each one may think it better that I should have excluded 

 some and introduced others. Such opinion depends 

 upon the neighbourhood he may reside in, and therefore 

 upon this subject I can only appeal to his candour, and 

 if I have leaned somewhat to the South rather than to 

 the North of the Empire, it has been because vegetation 



