INTEODUCTION. 



necessary Explanations, Index, &c. Altogether, a work so 

 inclusive might run up to four volumes of 500 pages each ; the 

 expense of printing which would-be much too great for the 

 object sought ; besides the adverse consideration, that it would 

 never attain to a completion. The work cannot be undertaken 

 at all, unless under some plan which will reduce' this terrible 

 length into the compass of a single volume at first, with a pos- 

 sible second for plants discarded from the first volume. Such 

 was the division of the plants into two categories, in lately 

 wnting the three successive Parts of the ' Compendium of 

 Cybele Britannica ; ' so that the two earlier Parts would have 

 formed a completed work of themselves, even although not 

 followed by a Third Part, nor this again by a ' Supplement.' 



In yet more lately treating of plant-distribution by secondary 

 provinces, or sub-provincial groups of counties, in that ' Sup- 

 plement ' to the last-named work, a closer condensation was 

 efi'eoted in a manner which cannot here be resorted to for the 

 counties. The needed condensation was there effected by 

 omitting references to personal or individual authorities, with 

 some few occasional exceptions, — by resorting to the nos. 

 instead of the names of the sub-provinces, — and by so placing 

 the little word "to" as to make it represent any continuous 

 series of nos. between the two extremes of 1 and 38. But in 

 this present work the object specially in view, is that of 

 recording the names of personal authorities or witnesses ; con- 

 nected also with the names of counties and vice-counties, lest 

 the longer series of 112 nos., instead of names for the latter, 

 should be found to over-tax and confuse memory in their 

 practical application. A reduced selection of the plants to be 

 treated, and a reduced selection of the counties to be nominally 

 enumerated for them, offer the only available modes for bringing 

 the work within the narrowed bulk of a single volume, to which 

 any second is unlikely to be added. 



A selection of the plants can be made by limiting them 

 to the more generally known and accepted species, whether 



