.37 i. 33if 



PREFACE 



The present Handbook is uniform with those which I have 

 already published on the Fern- Allies and Amaryllide^, and 

 I hope to complete the series with a similar Handbook of the 

 Iride^, having dealt with the much larger order Liliace^ in 

 another form in the * Journal of the Linnean Society,' in 

 eight papers, beginning in 1870 and ending in 1880. The 

 material on which it is founded is as follows, viz. : — 



1. The living collection at Kew, which for many years has 

 contained from 150 to 200 species, which I worked through to 

 prepare a Catalogue which was printed in the Kew Keport 

 for 1878. 



2. The dried collections at Kew and the British Museum, 

 which, taken together, contain specimens of about half the 

 known species. During the last ten years our Kew collection 

 has doubled in bulk, mainly through the contributions of our 

 indefatigable correspondent. Dr. Glaziou, of Eio Janeiro. 

 Founded on this material, I have published papers in the 

 * Journal of Botany ' on .Echmea, Pitcairnia, and the 

 Tillandsie^. 



3. In 1887 the Bentham Trustees purchased and pre- 

 sented to the Kew Library the magnificent series of water- 

 colour drawings collected by the late Prof. Edouard Morren, of 

 Liege, who was universally and deservedly regarded for the 

 twenty years previous to his death, in 1885, as the highest 

 authority on the plants of this order. The collection contains 



