INTRODUCTORY EXPLANATIONS. 3 



Beai'ing in mind, then, that the study of geogi-aphical 

 relations is an advance onwai'd, which cannot be success- 

 ftdly made, unless a fair knowledge of species has been 

 previously acquu'ed, it becomes easy to explain why the 

 distribution of plants has hitherto attracted only a very 

 small share of attention from the botanists of Britain. The 

 great — the very great majority have never attempted or 

 wished to go beyond the gi'oimd fii'st occupied. Whether 

 theii' attention has been restricted to the comparatively 

 nan'ow field of British botany, or whether it has ranged 

 widely over the flora of the whole eaith ; — whether it has 

 been directed to favourite gi'oups of plants, or whether it 

 has sought to compass the whole vegetable world ; in either 

 of these cases, sufficient mental interest and employment 

 have usually been found in the study and description of 

 species, or in their systematic classification. 



As this latter kind of knowledge is increased in amount 

 and accm-acy, the botanical geogi-apher becomes facilitated 

 in his own studies ; and of com'se his investigations wUl be 

 most successfiil with those plants and those comitries, 

 which have been most thoroughly examined by the col- 

 lectors and describers of species. 



Britain and Gennany, Sweden and France — countries 

 whose floral productions have been long studied and known 

 — may now be said to have theii' botanical geogiaphers, as 

 well as their technical describers of plants. And the same 

 department of phytological science is becoming an im- 

 portant featm-e even in the descriptive Floras of coimtries, 

 the plants of which are now, for the first time, publishing 

 in distinct and complete Floras ; as witness the admu-able 

 works on the botany of Russia, of the Canaries, and of the 

 Antarctic Lands, — respectively, by Ledebour, Webb, and 

 Hooker. 



