PKEFACE 



SowERBY, Bentham, Hooker, Babington, and others 

 have given us good, and in some cases excellent works, 

 enabling us to determine and name our British plants, 

 but they mostly confine themselves to technical details, 

 with such additional particulars as enable the student 

 to distinguish one species from another. To these, how- 

 ever, in the main they confine themselves, and, no 

 doubt, in great measure, from considerations of space, 

 omit other points often of great interest, nor does it fall 

 within their intention to enter much into the economy 

 and life-history of plants. 



Even Sowerby did not to any great extent fill up 

 the gap. He does not, I think, mention the remark- 

 able work of Sprengel, and the interesting researches 

 of Darwin, H. Miiller, Hildebrand, Delpino, and others 

 have been made since he wrote. 



Kerner's admirable work deals with plants gener- 

 ally, and comparatively little space, therefore, can be 

 devoted to British species. 



Knuth's Handhuch der Blutenhiologie relates 

 mainly to the relations of flowers and insects, as also 

 does my smaller work, British Wild Flowers, Con- 

 sidered in Relation to Insects. 



