EDITOR'S PREFACE 



In preparing the present edition of Johns'" Flowers of the Field, it 

 has been found necessary to make a good many additions and 

 alterations ; most of them, however, are of an unobtrusive nature. 



To have made a thoroughly scientific work of it was deemed 

 undesirable, for it would have meant so much pulling to pieces and 

 putting together again, that the charming classic, the simple book 

 in which for so many years keen unscientific amateurs have been 

 wont to burrow, and find quite successfully the names of the plants 

 which they collected, would no longer have remained. 



' Johns,' though founded on a scientific basis, is not a scientific 

 book, and it has been the aim of the editor to exclude from the 

 present edition all those bewildering technical terms which terrify 

 the uninitiated, and to retain that unscientific simplicity which 

 for so long has made ' Johns ' the book of all others beloved of 

 amateurs. 



Some plants not included in the older editions have been added, 

 and the descriptions of many individual species have been somewhat 

 elaborated, but the rearrangement of Orders and Genuses has been 

 comparatively slight. The greatest change will be found in the 

 illustrations. The majority of the old familiar cuts which give 

 so well what may best be called the ' expression ' of the plants they 

 represent are reproduced in the present edition, but in addition to 

 these some 268 other species are illustrated in the coloured plates, 

 which are reproduced from a collection of water-colour drawings 

 by Miss Gwatkin. These speak for themselves. Though ad- 

 vanced botanists are' apt to think lightly of illustrations, the cry of 

 amateurs is always, ' Give us plates,' and undoubtedly plates are a 

 great help to the beginner — if they are good: 



The Introduction to British Botany is given practically as it stands 

 in the older editions, and by a careful study of this the beginner may 

 easily gather sufficient knowledge to enable him to make the best 

 use of the text of the book. The chapter of the Introduction de- 

 scribing the Linnsean system of classification has been omitted as 

 unnecessary, and even likely to confuse the beginner, who would 

 be apt to laboriously study it, only to find that it is not the system 

 used in the text of the book. 



The Index, which has been prepared by another hand, is quite 

 exhaustive, and will doubtless appeal to the uninitiated, whilst the 

 Glossary of Terms will explain any words unfamiliar to beginners. 



Clarence Elliott 



