PREFACE. XV 



to a place in the indigenous catalogue, how greatly more cir- 

 cumspect should we be in allowing those of a tree or shrub, 

 when, from their perennial and enduring constitution, it is 

 always difficult and sometimes impossible to determine whether 

 the hand of Nature or that of man has been the instrument of 

 their dispersion. 



For plates illustrative of the species, in addition to those of 

 'English Botany,' which are regularly quoted throughout this 

 work, others, in foreign publications, are occasionally referred 

 to when peculiarly expressive of the plants they represent. 

 The beautiful figures in the ' Flora Danica,' * the later volumes 

 of which make ample amends in general for the great inequality 

 of the earlier, and too often, as regards engraving, colouring 

 and nomenclature, disgraceful execution of the intermediate 

 parts, have been consulted with advantage in several instances. 

 In the genus Carex the accurate plates of Schkuhr, with the 

 supplementary ones of Kunze, have been in most cases quoted 

 under each species. 



The full-sized and admirable delineations in Curtis's ' Flora 

 Londinensis,' and of its continuation by Graves and Hooker, 

 are seldom passed uncited ; and I have gladly availed myself of 

 the small but expressive figures of my friend John Curtis, Esq., 

 in his unrivalled ' British Entomology,' as far as they have 

 been drawn from specimens gathered in the Isle of Wight, of 

 which they are the elegant and all but living vouchers. 



The descriptions of the species were in all instances, with 

 very few exceptions, drawn up ivova. fresh specimens collected 

 in the island ; and in those cases where, from the scarcity of 

 the plant, recourse was necessarily had to recent or dried ex- 

 amples from other parts of the kingdom ; or, in default of these, 

 to the descriptions of other authors, such deviations from the 

 ordinary practice are invariably recorded, and the sources of 

 information faithfully pointed out, and acknowlegment made 

 when due. That no characters of importance might escape 



* This celebrated work, one of the most sumptuous and complete of 

 national illustrated Floras, has, since its commencement in 1764, been con- 

 ducted by editors of very unequal merits, as is lamentably apparent in particu- 

 lar portions. Under the able superintendence of the present editor, Vahl, it 

 Las more than regained its ancient reputation. 



