PEEFACE. 



In adding to the number of British Floras already before the 

 public, it is not attempted to enter into competition with either of 

 the standard scientific works whose merits have been tested through 

 several successive editions. The Author's object has been rather to 

 supply a deficiency which he believes has been much felt. He has 

 been frequently appUed to to recommend a work which should 

 enable persons having no previous knowledge of Botany to name 

 the wild flowers they might gather in their country rambles. He 

 has alwaj^s been much embarrassed how to answer this inquiry. 

 The book he had himself used under similar circumstances in a 

 foreign country, the ' Flore Fran9aise ' of De CandoUe, is inappli- 

 cable to Britain, and has long been out of print even in the country 

 for which it was written. Our own standard Floras, whatever their 

 botanical merit, require too much previous scientific knowledge for 

 a begianer or mere amateur to understand without assistance the 

 characters by which the plants are distinguished from each other. 

 In the endeavour to compile a more practical guide to the botanical 

 riches of our Islands, the Author has recalled to his mind the pro- 

 cess by which he was enabled, near forty yearr since, without any 

 previous acquaintance with the subject, to determine the wild plants 

 he gathered in the neighbourhood of Angouleme and of Montauban, 

 the difficulties he had to surmount, and the numerous mistakes he 

 was led into. Keeping these points in view, and taking, in some 

 measure, De CandoUe's ' Flore ' as his model, he has here attempted 

 a descriptive enumeration of all the plants wild in the British Isles, 

 distinguished by such characters as may be readily perceived by 

 the unlearned eye, and expressed, as far as lay in his power, in 

 ordinary language, using such technical terms only as appeared 



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