PREFACE 



THE following brief sketch of the history of botany makes 

 no claim to originality save in the mode of presentation 

 of the subject-matter. It comprises the substance of a 

 course of lectures given to students of the University of 

 Liverpool during their third year of residence, and has for 

 its object the discussion of the more important features 

 in the advance of botanical knowledge from the earliest 

 times down to, approximately, the present day. 



The ordinary university student, in the course of an 

 already overcrowded curriculum, has only the minimum of 

 time to devote to the study of the history of the science, 

 and not always the knowledge or experience requisite to 

 form a proper estimate of the relative values of the results 

 achieved by the numberless investigators whose names 

 appear on the pages of the larger text-books, still less to 

 picture for himself in correct perspective, the evolution of 

 the science as a whole. These lectures, it is hoped, may 

 in some measure aid him in attaining these ends, so far as 

 the history of botany is concerned. 



Much has been omitted that another writer might have 

 included ; exigencies of time and space must serve as 

 excuse for such omissions. Some aspects of the subject 

 have been expanded, not unduly it is hoped, that others 

 might prefer to treat more briefly or to omit altogether ; 

 that must be put down to individual idiosyncrasy on the 



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