INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS. 



plants of other and distant regions. Hence, the British 

 Flora was falling more and more into arrear, in each suc- 

 cessive edition, and was thus making an opening for the 

 successful competitor which appeared in the Manual. It 

 is left behind, and will now never overtake that com- 

 petitor; but, after having been really useful and much 

 used hi its time, it will in turn soon fall into disuse, like 

 the Floras of Hudson, of Withering, of Smith. 



True, ' Hooker's British Flora ' has recently been re- 

 edited, in its Sixth Edition, by a botanist of merited 

 reputation, who has bestowed considerable pains upon it, 

 and has doubtless made many emendations in it. But the 

 attention of Professor Ai'nott, equally with that of Sir 

 William Hooker, had been long given to exotic botany, 

 and almost entii'ely withdrawn from British and even 

 European species. And thus he too came to the task 

 unprepared with the special kind of knowledge required 

 for its proper performance. The British Flora, even in 

 its amended Sixth Edition, was still left a good deal be- 

 hind the state of our knowledge in British botany, at its 

 date of publication in 1850. Without going beyond the 

 Cybele itself it is easy to give an illustration of the fact 

 asserted, which will be done in the next paragraph, in 

 order to justify this comparison of the two works here. 



In the Preface to the Sixth Edition of the British 

 Flora (1850) botanists are recommended to consult Wat- 

 son's ' Eemarks on the Geograpliical Distribution of 

 British Plants' (a small book published in 1835) for the 

 stations and range of the species ; no mention whatever 

 being made of the Cj'bele Britannica, in which the same 

 subject is treated so much more fully, and also (through 

 increased individual experience, and accumulated general 

 knowledge) so much more accurately. Mark the contrast. 

 In the Preface to the Third Edition of the Manual of 



