PREFACE. vii 



tical, any student who should be desirous of pro- 

 ceeding so far. A volume of this size can indeed 

 be but elementary on subjects so extensive; but 

 if it be clear and intelligible as far as it oes, 

 serving to indicate the scope of the science of 

 botany, and how any of its branches may be 

 cultivated further, my purpose is answered. The 

 subject has naturally led rne to a particular cri- 

 ticism of the Linnaean system of arrangement, 

 which the public, it seems, has expected from 

 me. Without wasting any words on those specu- 

 lative and fanciful changes, which the most ig- 

 norant may easily make, in an artificial system; 

 and without entering into controversy, with the 

 very few competent writers who have proposed 

 any alterations; I have simply stated the result 

 of my own practical observations, wishing by 

 the light of experience to correct and to confirm 

 what has been found useful, rather than rashly 

 to overthrow what perhaps cannot on the whole 

 be improved. 



As the discriminating characters of the Lin- 

 naean system are founded in nature and fact, 

 and depend upon parts essential to every species 

 of plant when in perfection; and as the applica- 

 tion of them to practice is, above all other sy- 



