241 
THE STUDY OF THE BRITISH FLORA. 
By James W. H. Tram, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.* 
- Tuer honour conferred in the election to be President for the 
year of the Botanical Section of the British Association imposes 
the duty of preparing an address. I trust that my selection of a 
subject will not be attributed by anyone to a want of appreciation 
of the worth and importance of certain sides of botanical research 
to which I shall have less occasion to refer. ese have been 
eloquently supported by former Presidents, and I take this oppor- 
tunity to express the thanks I owe for the benefit received from 
their SRT ge to the advancement of the science of botany. 
e 
he path of those who 
would gladly give of their best, but find the difficulties for a time 
to become acquainted with the plants of their own vicinity ; 
and, if they wish to undertake investigations in the hope of doing 
what they can to advance botanical science, they may find it 
scarcely possible to ascertain what has been already done and 
recorded by others. 
For a time the knowledge of plants was too much confined to 
ance attached to this side of the study, even by so great a leader 
inneus, naturall to ar i 
is danger of swinging to the other extreme and of failing to recog- 
nize the need t i ith plants i i 
n 
bordinate to it and of 
little value. It is scarcely necessary to point out that each side 
___* Presidential Address to the Botanical Section of the British Association . 
delivered at Sheffield, September, 1910 
_ Journar, or Borany.—Vor. 48. [Ocr.1910.] 0 
