PREFACE. xi 
Botanica. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the 
necessity of increasing the number of substantives to denote 
the several organs, and their principal variations, instead 
of using the old substantives with the addition of appropriate 
sane cies to limit their signification, yet as these new sub- 
stantives are used by the greatest part of modern authors, 
and have not yet been eee nined in our language, there 
appeared a necessity of prefixing an introduction to botany, 
principally for the purpose of giving a connected view of 
the anatomy of vegetables, according to the latest views of 
Mirbel, De Candolle, and other eminent botanists... The 
figures annexed to this part of the work have been very 
carefully selected, with a view of comprising as much 
information as possible in a small compass. 
In consequence of the addition of this introduction, this 
work contains all that is necessary for the student of English 
botany, unless he is desirous of verifying his first steps in 
the science by a reference to the figures of plants. The 
very high price of Sowerby’s English Botany, which is 
seldom to be procured for less than fifty guineas, rendering 
it inaccessible to the generality of students, it has een 
judged preferable to refer to Gerarde’s Herbal as edited 
by Johnson, and the Theatre of Parkinson, either of which 
may be purchased at a very moderate price; and their 
figures, although only wood cuts, will give a good idea of 
the plants. Some may prefer the figures of those parts 
only which characterize the genera, and of these the 
cheapest is Tournefort’s Institutiones Rei herbarie, whose 
genera in general correspond with those of Ray. But 
these helps desert the student when he attempts the study - 
of the plants which were called by the ancient botanists, 
on account of their not bearing flowers, imperfect plants; 
and by Linnezeus, because he could not detect in them the 
presence of the sexual organs, which his preconceived 
opinion required to be present in all plants, cryptogamia, 
that is to say, secret marriages. Should the student en- 
deavour to penetrate this, the higher botany, and wish for 
