xii FLOEA OF JERSEY. 



who have given me assistance in various ways. I owe much to 

 Mr. J. Piquet, who has made the Jersey plants a lifelong study. 

 I have also been allowed to inspect the collections of Mr. F. G. 

 Piquet, the Rev. H. J. Sumner, Mr. S. Guiton, and the Maison St. 

 Louis. Two or three valuable collections of old Jersey plants had 

 unfortunately been destroyed or dispersed before I had the oppor- 

 tunity of consulting them. Mr. Arthur Bennett, always ready 

 to place his wide knowledge and sound judgment at the disposal 

 of others, sent a list of records, and has inspected many of the 

 more critical plants. To Mr. F. N. WilHams I owe the suggestion 

 that I should adopt Engler's system, and several valuable notes 

 on Nomenclature. Help of various kinds has also been received 

 from the authorities of the British Museum of Natural History, 

 Messrs. H. and J. Groves, Mr. J. W. White, Mr. C. E. Salmon, 

 Mr. 0. P. Hurst, and the Rev. G. Henslow. 



The relation of the Jersey Flora to the general Flora of Europe, 

 the origin of the various groups of species, and other questions of 

 general interest are reserved to be dealt with in the Remarks upon 

 the Flora of the Channel Islands in general at the end of the 

 volume. 



V. The arrangement of the Flora is that of Engler's " Die 

 Natlirliohen Pfianzenfamilien," which is beginning to be adopted 

 both on the Continent and in America. This is a new departure, 

 which will possibly provoke adverse criticism. British botanists, 

 as a rule, are very conservative : very few of them trouble them- 

 selves with systems at all ; they confine themselves chiefly to the 

 study of species, and such species only as grow within their own 

 area. If they are ever to emancipate themselves from the insular 

 ideas which too often dominate the science, they will have to 

 learn to look abroad, and realise that British plants grow in other 

 places besides Great Britain and Ireland, and that the British 

 Flora is only an insignificant portion of the Flora of the globe, and 

 cannot profitably be studied in the twentieth century without 

 reference to the Flora of other countries. 



The arrangement adopted in most, if not all, modern British 

 Floras is based, either directly or indirectly, upon Bentham and 

 Hooker's magnificent " Genera Plantarum " (1862-1883). This work 

 is, primarily, as its title represents it to be, an unsurpassed collection 

 of generic descriptions of the highest possible merit ; but it does not 



