6 INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS. 



British Botany, dated in the following year, the Cybele 

 is recommended, and the Remarks not mentioned at all. 

 Tliis one example is not solitary, but selected because the 

 most appropriate for mention here. It shows the diffe- 

 rential character of the two works from beginning to end. 

 One would bring the student up to the state of knowledge 

 of the day, while the other would leave him beliind ; one 

 acknowledges the sujperior work of 1847 — 9, while the 

 other ignores it, and remembers only the inferior work of 

 1835. 



Written under an inspiration at least partially different 

 from that which seems alone to have dictated the later 

 editions of the British Flora, Babington's Manual has 

 become our standard work m both senses of the term ; 

 and it is likely to be long kept so. It is the most 

 complete and perfect in itself ; and it is the one certain 

 to be the most extensively in use. From its first ap- 

 pearance, the Author of the Cybele Britannica fully 

 expected this result. It was therefore his wish originally 

 to adapt his own work to the Manual, by uniformity of 

 nomenclature, and uniformity in the series or sequence of 

 the species. Had this been done, it might in turn proba- 

 bly have led to the like imiformity in the extensively 

 cii'culated and much used ' London Catalogue of British 

 Plants.' Such an uniformity among the three publica- 

 tions, would have been found gi'eatlj^ convenient to British 

 botanists, and not without some advantages to the parties 

 more immediately concerned. 



There were, unfortunately, two objections sufficiently 

 formidable to prevent the Author of the Cybele from 

 adapting this work or his other wiitings to the Manual. 

 These obstacles were fomid in the decided bias evinced 

 by Mr. Babington, during the half dozen j^ears preceding 

 publication of the first volume of the Cybele, not only to 



