PREFACE. 



Many new arrangements have taken place, and various 

 discoveries have been made in Botany, since the publication 

 of Sibthorp's Latin Flora.' Under these obvious circum- 

 stances, the present work was undertaken, in which will 

 be found additions to the Oxfordshire flowering plants, and 

 an enumeration and brief description of the native plants, 

 growing in the contiguous counties. Sibthorp's Work, 

 Mr. Purton's valuable Midland Flora, Mr. Perry's List 

 of Plants, Turner and Dillwyn's Botanist's Guide, 

 with the liberal communications of Mr. Baxter, Curator 

 of the Botanic Garden, and those of other friends, form 

 the principal authorities for stations of the rarer plants 

 described, and mentioned. 



The design of the present work is to furnish the Bota- 

 nical Student, in the plainest language, with sufficient 

 elementary instruction, to ascertain the name of any wild, 

 flowering plant, he may discover, within the assigned 

 limits of the work, and to point out to him any economi- 

 cal uses, medicinal virtues, or peculiarity of structure as 

 bearing upon Natural Theology, in the plant made out. 



' Sibthorp's concise Flora Oxoniensis, creditable alike to the 

 research and science of the author, was published in 1794. 



