XXVlll P R E FA C E. 



is preferable to glabrous^ though the latter is near- 

 er the Latin ; while eveii expresses a freedom from 

 all inequality. The former answers exactly to the 

 Latin glaber, the latter to IcEvis. Heartshaped is full 

 as intelligible as cordate ; furrowed is surely pre- 

 ferable to silicate, and triangular to triquetrous. 

 When, as in the last instance, a purely Latin word 

 is become familiar English, it is certainly not the 

 worse on that account. Uniform, universal, and 

 many others, are now completely naturalized, and 

 may justify unilateral as a translation, now first at- 

 tempted, of secundus ; and Avhich is at any rate 

 better than secund. The Latin has furnished us 

 with numerous words, in common use, beginning 

 with ob ; and therefore obovate may be admitted, as 

 more commodious than inversely ovate, and by this 

 time equally intelligible. Still I prefer the English 

 construction of ovate-lanceolate to the half Latin 

 ovato-lanceolate. According to these examples, the 

 reader will judge of the rest. He will find in my 

 -introductory publications explanations of every use- 

 ful or necessary term, perhaps of many more ; though 

 in general those which pedantry and affectation have 

 contrived, without necessity, are purposely omitted 

 in those works, and I hope never used in the present 

 volumes. 



The synonyms, or references to authors, given 

 in the Flora Britannica, have here received consi- 

 derable augmentation, as well as correction. Every 

 one has been carefully revised ; and where the same 

 specific names as mine are used, it has been thought 

 best not to encumber these pages with citations of 

 every provincial or local Flora throughout ; though 



