PREFACE 



THE study of vegetation in the British Isles, begun by the 

 late Robert Smith, is being vigorously prosecuted by the 

 members of the British Vegetation Committee. Already, 

 several vegetation maps and memoirs have been published of 

 parts of the central and northern Permines, Scotland, Ireland, and 

 Somerset by W. G. Smith, Lewis, Pethybridge, Praeger, Rankin, 

 and myself, in addition to several minor publications by these 

 and other members. Whilst this book was going through the 

 press, Tansley's Types of British Vegetation appeared, where, 

 for the first time, a sketch of the plant formations and plant 

 associations of the whole of the British Isles is given. Several 

 vegetation maps, of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Norfolk, 

 north-eastern Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, and other districts, have 

 been finished by various members of the Vegetation Committee, 

 but cannot be published at present owing to lack of funds. 

 The present volume and the accompanying maps owe their 

 publication to the generosity of the Royal Society and the 

 Royal Geographical Society, whom I take the present oppor- 

 tunity of thanking on my own behalf and on that of British 

 phytogeographers and ecologists in general. I fear, however, 

 that, until government recognition is taken of the botanical 

 survey of the country, publication of this kind of work \n\\ 

 continue to languish. 



The present work is the result of a botanical survey of the 

 Peak District of the southern Pennines begun in January, 1903. 

 In preparing the vegetation maps, the Ordnance maps on the 

 scale of six inches to the mile (1 : 10560) were used for field 

 work. However, these were not found so superior to the 



