316 TlMEHRI. 



of life that help to make botany so suggestive and 

 fascinating a pursuit to its students. 



But, as with men and women, so with flowers ; as 

 soon as we begin to take an interest in them, we want 

 to know their names ; and here considerable difficulty 

 has to be encountered. Few people here can tell us the 

 names of a round dozen of our native flowers ; and 

 there is no one book, much less any popular and easily 

 procurable book, from which they can be named. Most 

 of the specimens of my own collecting could not have 

 been identified without the help of my friend, G. S. 

 JENMAN, Esq., F.L.S , our Government Botanist, pro- 

 bably the only person in the colony who knows the scien- 

 tific names of our wild-flowers, great and small, almost as 

 familiarly as a Bentham or a Hooker might know the 

 British flora ; and for many quaint and interesting popular 

 names, which I have tried to make a special feature of this 

 paper, I have to thank G. H. Hawtayne, Esq., C.M.G., 

 whose knowledge of creole lore is well known to our 

 colonists. My object being simply to help in naming the 

 plants, and to suggest, rather than to treat in detail, some 

 points of interest in their structure and habits, I have 

 avoided as far as possible the use of technical terms and 

 purely scientific characteristics, taking instead any 

 obvious external features that may serve as guides : for 

 which I am sure that scientific botanists will be the first 

 to hold me excused, as they will know how impossible 

 it is for a beginner to name a plant or to get the slightest 

 idea of its appearance from the descriptions in botanical 

 works, such as Grisebach'S valuable " Flora of the West 

 Indies.'* Wherever possible the Botanic Gardens have 

 been taken as the collecting ground, as they are visited 



