PREFACE. ix 
to impart cut-and-dried information as to kindle 
the sympathy and awaken the interest of the 
reader in a department of nature with which few, 
owing to the technical phraseology. of botanical 
works, are familiar. Those who have derived 
pleasure and profit from the study of flowers 
and ferns—subjects, it is pleasing to find, now 
everywhere popular—by descending lower into 
the arcana of the vegetable kingdom will find a 
still more interesting and delightful field of re- 
search in the objects brought under review in the 
following pages. This work is neither a text-book 
nor a guide to species, but simply a popular history 
of the uses, structural peculiarities, associations, 
and other interesting facts connected with the 
humblest forms of plant-life ; and, as such, it may 
be regarded as an introduction to more scientific 
treatises which deal with particular orders and 
species. 
H.M. 
Fune 1874. 
