PLAN OF THE FLORA. 



In the following pages, after some necessary lists of books and corre- 

 spondents, the Flowering Plants and Ferns of Middlesex are systematically 

 enumerated. In the arrangement of natural families, genera, and species, 

 the last (6th) edition of Babington's Manual is, with a very few exceptions, 

 followed; but many plants considered in that work as species are here 

 reckoned as sub-species or varieties. 



Each species is treated on the following plan : — 



I. In the first line, and printed in thick type, stands the botanical 

 (Latin) name of the plant as given either in Babington's Manual, Syme's 

 English Botany, or The London Catalogue of British Plants (ed. 6) ; and 

 whenever the names in these three standard works differ, those not here 

 adopted are given as synonyms. When the plant possesses an English 

 name, it follows the Latin one ; but artificial names, or mere translations of 

 the scientific titles, have not been perpetuated. It is only the commonest, 

 the most conspicuous, and the useful species that have any real vernacular 



^ name. 



II. The second paragraph contains the names of the species (including 

 the names employed by the ante-Linnsean observers, from Turner to Black- 

 stone) used in the books, MSS., &c. in which it is mentioned as found 

 in Middlesex, when such names differ from the one adopted in this Flora. 

 These synonyms are usually arranged in chronological order. 



III. In the third paragraph wiU be found : — (a.) A reference to Mr. H. C. 

 Watson's Cybele Britannica, and to the Compendium of that book so far as 

 printed, in which nearly all that is known of the distribution of the species 

 will be found, {b.) A reference to a figure of the plant. As far as at present 

 published, Syme's English Botany is chiefly quoted ; but the plates of Curtis's 

 Flora Londinensis are often used, and the original edition of English 

 Botany, with its Supplement, J. Curtis's British Entomology, and a few older 

 works, are occasionally referred to. In the Cyperacccs, Reichenbach's 

 excellent figures in the Icones Fl. Germ., vol. viii. are quoted; in the 

 Gramitiece (of which there are no very good figures published), Lowe's 

 British Grasses; and in the Ferns, Moore's Octavo Nature-printed British 

 Ferns, and Newman's History, ed. ii. Usually the most characteristic 



B 



