PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 



The work of translating Professor Sachs' 'Vorlesungen über Pflanzen-physio- 

 logie ' has been carried on during intervals between scientific duties of other kinds, 

 and some delay has resulted from the pressure of certain of these duties of late. 



To put the graphic language of the original into English, which should be 

 as widely read in this country as the German lectures have been on the Continent, 

 has been a distinct wish and aim on my part ; but it is well known that difficulties 

 often arise in the attempt to render a German scientific sentence into simple English 

 intelligible to the general reader, and that the force of many expressions may be 

 readily injured or destroyed by displaying too much fear of their foreign form. That 

 it has not always been possible to reproduce the living ideas of the author with their 

 full force in the new language, I am only too well aware, but it is hoped that 

 the faults are venial : they would have been more numerous but for the kindness 

 of Dr. S. H. Vines, F.R.S., of Christ's College, Cambridge, who has been so good as 

 to look over the proofs before I finally revised them for the press, I am also 

 indebted to the courtesy of Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer, F.R.S., C.IVI.G., the Director 

 of the Royal Gardens, Kew, and to Dr. Bayley Balfour, F.R.S., Professor of Botany 

 in the University of Oxford, for several suggestions. 



The index is the only real departure from the original: this I have greatly 

 extended, in the hope that it will be correspondingly useful to students and teachers. 

 With regard to the bibliography, I have not added to the notes selected by Professor 

 Sachs ; but it may be pointed out that further references to the literature connected 

 with special points are available in the English editions of De Bary's ' Comparative 

 Anatomy of the Ferns and Phanerogams,' by Professor Bower and Dr. Scott ; 

 Goebel's ' Outlines of the Classification and Special Morphology of Plants,' by 

 Professor Bayley Balfour and the Rev. H. E. F. Garnsey ; De Bary's ' Comparative 

 Morphology and Biology of the Fungi, INIycetozoa and Bacteria,' by the same ; and in 

 the ' Lectures on the Physiology of Plants,' by Dr. S. H. Vines. 



PI. MARSHALL WARD. 

 Forestry School, 



Cooper's Hill. 



