[xxxiv] 



could I hope to avoid the more serious errors, particularly in forming those 

 new genera for which New Holland is pre-eminent. 



Accordingly I have followed Jussieu's system in which the orders are for the 

 most part truly natural, although their grouping into classes, as their no less 

 frank than learned Author admits, is often artificial and at times founded, it 

 seems to me, upon doubtful principles. 



I have not tried to substitute another system for that of Jussieu, and I am 

 not greatly perturbed about the succession of orders, for nature itself, by 

 linking organic bodies more after the manner of a network than of a chain, 

 scarcely acknowledges such a succession. 



In amending the work of so great a man I have always been cautious, but, 

 led by the observations of more recent workers and by my own, I have never- 

 theless ventured to propose some new orders and to delimit some others more 

 narrowly or differendy. 



I have rarely given by themselves the diagnoses of orders, which can often 

 be deduced from the description prefixed to many; these diagnoses, as far as 

 possible, together with the abbreviated characters of genera arranged accor- 

 ding to the Linnaean system and the orders of Acotyledones, now postponed 

 as they are to be transferred to the second volume, are to be added to that 

 volume. 



Even if the teaching of Jussieu on the calycine nature (not to mention the 

 origin) of the floral covering of Monocotyledones and of Dicotyledones with 

 incomplete flowers has not been proved, a matter which in the present state 

 of science indeed does not admit of incontrovertible argument, to me it seems 

 to be more consistent with an analogy; but following Mirbel, I have substi- 

 tuted Perianthium for calyx in families with a simple floral covering. 



Vernation or Aestivation of the lower, first accurately observed by the phi- 

 losophical Grew and not overlooked by the immortal Linnaeus, but either 

 wholly neglected or just noted in passing by several more recent workers, 

 I have throughout introduced into the characters, especially those of the or- 

 ders; and I have termed this valvata when the edges of the leaflets or seg- 

 ments of the [floral] covering are mutually placed together in the manner of 

 the valves of a capsule. 



I have adopted Ovarium, following Gaertner, for germen, and Placenta 

 for the place of shelter [insertion] of the seeds. 



Linnaean punctuation I have used only in specific characters, which per- 

 haps later [will be replaced] by another method, for example in those cha- 

 racters the ablative will be discarded for the nominative. 



In this forerunner of the future work I have thought it sufficient to indi- 

 cate the regions, in which species occur, that are the most diverse on account 

 of degree of heat or prevailing winds, and I have noted each one of these 

 by a single Roman capital letter added to the specific phrase and enclosed in 

 brackets as follows: 



(J) Denotes the neighbourhood of the colony of Port Jackson, including the 

 banks of the estuary named Hunter's River or Coal River. 



(M) The Southern Coast of New Holland, from the Lewin Promontory, to 



