DIVERSITY 



or 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE following Lectures have been composed during 

 the course of the last eight years, at the instance of an 

 intelligent and cultivated circle, free from " the dust 

 of schools," and were by no means intended for publica- 

 tion ; in this point, however, I have yielded to the wishes 

 of my friends, and so now find myself compelled to add a 

 few words, in order to place the Lectures in their proper 

 light. 



From the nature of the circumstances which led to their 

 composition, they were not, of course, intended to teach 

 the positive substance of the science, to bring forward new 

 results from my own researches or to solve problems of 

 inquiry. Here and there even may perchance be found, in 

 spite of all my efforts to avoid it, some trifling matter not 

 quite correctly stated; but this defect will not at all interfere 

 with the design I had in view in the preparation of these 

 little essays. My chief aim was, in fact, the satisfaction of 

 what may be called a class-vanity. A large proportion of 

 the uninitiated, even among the educated classes, are still 

 in the habit of regarding the Botanist as a dealer in 

 barbarous Latin names, a man who plucks flowers, names 



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