AN ADDRESS BY THE EDITORS, 199 
our conscience too, to offer respectful civilities to our supporters. 
On this occasion we have something to say to our contributors, 
something about ourselves and our past doings, and something 
about our future intentions. 
First. To our contributors we tender our hearty thanks for 
their disinterested support, without which our journal, if it could 
exist at all, would want one of its most attractive features—variety. 
We may say, in the phrase of after-dinner orators, that although 
we do feel our obligations to all who have communicated to 
our pages either facts or opinions, we are unable adequately to 
express these feelings, and therefore we hope that they to whom 
we are indebted will accept of the will for the deed. It is un- 
necessary to particularize those who have mainly contributed to 
make the ‘ Phytologist’ useful and attractive. They are well 
known as botanists and men of science, and their gratuitous con- 
tributions are ample proofs of their liberality and kindness,—an 
evidence that science enlarges the heart as well as the mind. To 
the few who have offered us their good counsel we owe a double 
debt of gratitude; and if it be impracticable to follow the coun- 
sel of every one who is generous enough to offer it, we can al- 
ways derive some advantage from good advice; in cases where 
we cannot follow it, we can at least appreciate the motives and 
esteem the disinterestedness of the givers. 
Srconp. What we have to say about ourselves is of a less 
agreeable tenour than the above; but as we acknowledge our ob- 
ligations to our contributors, we think it our duty to admit our 
own shortcomings and deficiencies, delinquencies, or demerits, 
whether these be of omission or commission. We humbly thank 
those who have pointed out our failings, and for having had long 
patience with us till we had time and a convenient occasion for 
making this acknowledgment. 
Ist. The three allied forms of Thalictrum, T. minus, T. flexuo- 
sum, and T. saxatile, were admitted into the descriptive botanical 
part solely on the authority of Mr. Babington and of the authors 
or author of the London Catalogue. The descriptions are indeed 
taken from the former authority, and it is believed that ipsissima 
verba, the identical terms of the learned author of the Manual of 
British Plants, are employed. This however has not given satis- 
faction, and it is to us a subject of regret that we did not adhere 
to the old divisions of the forms into either T. minus with T. 
