Xll INTRODUCTION. 



but also its condition before the great alterations caused by 

 modern enclosures and drainage : alterations still advancing 

 so rapidly that probably many of the places in which I have 

 myself gathered plants within the last few years do not 

 now produce them. The localities given, by the older 

 Botanists, but which have not been confirmed by recent 

 observers, are inserted on their authority and markedly 

 separated from the rest by being printed in Italics, so as 

 to point out their historical not modern character. 



Several of the less accessible parts of the county have 

 not been examined so fully as could be desired ; and indeed 

 the publication of this book has been delayed in the hope 

 of removing that defect from it. As it does not seem 

 probable, from what we know of them, that the distant 

 parts of the Fens possess plants differing from those found 

 in other portions of that district, the want of their more 

 thorough examination does not warrant longer delay. 



It is now generally considered that the introduction of 

 descriptions of the plants, or even their generic and specific 

 characters, into a local Flora, such as the present, only swells 

 its bulk without adding proportionably to its usefulness. 

 The time when such descriptive local Floras were useful 

 seems to have long since passed. The only modern books 

 of the kind which now attract attention are rendered valu- 

 able, not by their local peculiarities, but from their authors 

 having inserted so much original matter as to render them 

 fragments of a general Flora. In this Catalogue I have 

 naturally adopted the names and the arrangement used in 

 my own Manual, edition 4; but have always quoted the 

 above mentioned works of Ray, the Martyns, Lyons, 

 and- Relhan, and occasionally referred to some other 



