PREFACE. vii 



from the most varied and distant points of the geographical 

 areas of the several species." 



In respect of the views here advanced as to the limitation of 

 the species of our indigenous Flora, it must be remembered that 

 they are those of a great master of systematic and descriptive 

 Botany who had collected and studied a large proportion of the 

 prevalent forms of British plants in a living state, not only in 

 our three kingdoms, but in France, Scandinavia, Russia, Ger- 

 many, Switzerland, and Turkey. Bentham's conclusions were 

 not critical, but neither were they superficial ; he was an acute 

 and indefatigable observer, gifted with remarkable synthetic 

 powers, and as conscientious as judicious in the uses he put 

 them to. The result he arrived at was, that the specific term 

 should have a much wider application than prevailed in most 

 local Floras. 



It remains that I should explain the course I have adopted 

 in the delicate task of rendering a new edition of my late 

 friend's work as complete as possible without tampering with 

 his views. I have not amplified or modified the descriptions 

 of orders, genera, and species, except in rare cases of error or 

 omission. The very few species recently added to the British 

 Flora, and which I think that he would have admitted, are 

 entered between brackets [ ]. In cases where I think he would 

 have regarded them as varieties I have briefly described them (in 

 brackets) as such under the species to which, I believe, he would 

 have attached them. "With regard to certain well-marked 

 varieties admitted as species by most botanists, but which he 

 has dismissed with a mention, I have added their characters ; 

 in all such cases especially as where I think that the absence 

 of such characters would lead the beginner to suppose that he 

 had a different species under his eye. 



In many instances I have been compelled to revise and 

 materially add to the localities, and especially the continental 

 and exotic distribution of the species. It is evident that this 



