INTRODUCTION. 



The object which the Author proposed to himself, in preparing 

 a new Flora of the British Empire, was of a twofold nature : 

 Istly, to provide the young Student with a description of our 

 native plants, arranged according to the simplest method ; and 

 2dly, to afford to the more experienced Botanist, a manual, that 

 should be useful in the field as well as in the closet. In regard 

 to the first object, the experience of nearly an hundred years 

 has proved to every unprejudiced mind, that no system has 

 appeared which can be compared to that of the immortal Swede 

 for the facility/ with which it enables any one, hitherto unprac- 

 tised in Botany, to arrive at a knowledge of the Genus and 

 Species of a plant. — The Linnaean Method is, therefore, here 

 still, though not exclusively, adopted. 



It has been the opinion of the author, and of many of his 

 friends, that, in most of the Floras hitherto published, however 

 excellent in other respects, either too much or too little space 

 has been devoted to the generic and specific descriptions and 

 synonyms ; in the one case, swelling the book to a size which 

 entails both expense on the purchaser and difficulty in consult- 

 ing the several volumes ; in the other, reducing the technical 

 characters to the shortest possible compass, so that they can 

 scarcely be made available, except to those who are already 

 partially acquainted with the plant under examination, or with 

 some of its near allies. Between these extremes, the author 

 has attempted to steer a middle course, by giving diagnostic 

 remarks where, and where only, they have appeared to him 

 necessary ; confining the synonyms, with few exceptions, to 

 those of the writer who first described the plant, to a good 

 figure, and a reference to a single Flora of Great Britain ; and 



