PREF ACE. 
OO 
THE present taste for Botany, so general among all ranks, and the great encourage- 
ment given to works of merit in that fascinating science, first emboldened the Publisher 
of the present undertaking to solicit assistance from several distinguished Collectors of 
Plants in the vicinity of the Metropolis. Having been at length enabled by their 
liberality to bring forward, among the rest of his brethren, some of the efforts of his 
pencil, it would be dastardly in him not to own that his hopes of success overbalance 
his fears; it now only remains with the Public at large to appreciate his labours, and 
become his best patrons. Anxious however for fame, rather than inordinate profit, he 
will be content with very small interest for the sums advanced; and the descriptions of 
his figures will be corrected, or often wholly drawn. up, by a Botanist more learned than 
- himself, It may not be improper to add a few words respecting that department of 
the work. 
In all similar publications which have hitherto appeared, not evenexcepting the most 
respectable, a considerable portion of each page has been filled with useless repetitions 
of the classes, orders, and generic characters of the sexual system. No one who 
pretends to the least knowledge of the science is without the Genera Plantarum of 
Linne, nor any one who is solicitous to gain deeper information, without that of Jussieu. 
The transcendant merit of the last author, however, having yet never been detailed 
among us, the natural order to which he refers each genus here figured will always be 
inserted preceding its character ; this will be only given with the first species, making 
such alterations, or remarks, as the investigation of it suggests. Botany, likeall other 
sciences, has lately made a rapid progress in improvement, and in no branch+so con- — 
spicuously as that which relates to the affinities of genera; more might be said on this 
head, if it were not already anticipated in a short but most energetic paragraph of the 
Edinburgh Review. With regard to the Plants themselves, such only as are new, 
_ uncommonly beautiful, or incompletely figured by others, will be selected ; and of these 
the harvest is abundant. | 
