166 SPECIMEN OF A FLORA OF CANADA. 
many common characteristics modified by latitude and local cireum- 
stances. It has been found a convenience by the students of Canadian 
Botany that the floras of the neighbourmg United States, where there 
has earlier been a demand for such works, contain nearly all our 
plants, and consequently offer us much of the assistance that we need ; 
but at the same time besides the not unnatural feeling of a desire as 
a nation to provide for our own scientific wants, the large number of 
plants found in the middle United States, which our more northern 
climate refuses to support, increases the catalogue to an extent which 
very materially adds to the difficulties of the student, and if no more 
were attempted than to exclude from the list, plants which we can 
have no expectation of finding within our borders, the utility of a 
Canadian Flora to those amongst us who desire to be acquainted with 
our native plants would not be small. My attention having been 
directed to the subject with this view, I have carefully considered in 
what respect I should be disposed to deviate from the methods which 
I find adopted by others, and I propose now very concisely to explain 
and defend my views, which I shall also illustrate by a sufficient 
specimen. 
I would speak first of the system which it seems expedient to 
follow. I presume it would be needless to argue in favour of some 
modification of the natural method, and this being admitted, it will be 
found that, excepting in a few cases where sub-divisions are deemed 
necessary by some and rejected by others, there is general agreement as 
to the orders of plants. The differences, excepting where they have to 
do with the limits of genera and species, relate to the larger combina- 
tions, and to the most proper series, subjects manifestly of very inferior 
importance. and of such a nature that any one who has an ordinary 
acquaintance with the principles of the Science, could employ with 
facility any of the methods which have been recently proposed. The: 
method of De Candolle, from its real merits and the deservedly high 
reputation of its author, as well as from its having been employed in 
his celebrated work, (Prodromus Systematis Naturalis regni Vegeta- 
bilis,) the greatest attempt in modern times at a general description of 
the species of plants, has obtained more currency than any other, and 
for that reason is apt to meet with favour. It seems to me, however, 
that the triflmg mconvenience of making a change to those who are 
habituated to a particular arrangement, should by no means prevent 
our aiming at improvement, and having come to the conclusion that 
vere 
