72 INTRODUCTION. 
ward to take in Switzerland also ; its north-west angle being taken 
along with another section, as explained underneath. France is 
the more compact country so named, exclusive of the quasi-italian 
isle of Corsica; and since it must thus share the Alps with Italy, 
Austria, and Germany as here taken, the “ Alpine plants” are so 
made to belong alike to the floras of western, middle and southern 
Europe; as indeed many of them truly do belong by being 
repeated on the Pyrenees and Carpathians, and farther southward 
on the Sierras of Spain, and some even on the lower hills of Italy 
and Turkey. Channel (cha) is intended to express a com- 
paratively narrow section of north-west France, bordering upon 
the English Chanuel, between Britany and Belgium. As the 
citations are here mostly made from Brebisson’s Flore de la 
Normandie the abbreviation ‘nor’ might have been more appro- 
priate for this northerly portion of France, had it not been 
required for Norway instead. Many of the plants equally belong 
to the ‘Channel Isles’ still under the English Crown, and so far 
the name suits fitly enough; although it is to be understood that 
not all of them occur there. Netherlands (net) is an old name 
revived to include Belgium and Holland; and it must be so far 
extended as to cover Hanover and other small territories of North- 
west Germany, completing the space between France and Den- 
mark. N.B. These three comparatively small tracts are thus 
specialized in order to indicate the existence of our English 
species on the lands fronting opposite the southern and eastern 
coasts of Britain, and believed to have been united therewith 
formerly, as continuous land without intervening sea. As a whole 
the flora of this country sufficiently accords with the belief of such 
a former land continuity, while there is now little or nothing 
special on the two coast lines, insular and continental, to be 
adduced as botanical evidence of that continuity. Not only by 
these three sections, but throughout the three lines also, the 
habitats have been selected and arranged in order to relate to 
Britain as a quasi-centre,— to show where the species extend in 
neighbouring countries, not to trace them equally over the earth, 
independently of a fixed starting point. Gothland (got) is a 
