192 .MY LIFE 



nothing, and as time went on I found that there were a very 

 large number of these, including many of our most beautiful 

 and curious flowers, and I felt that I must get some other 

 book by which I could learn something about these also. But 

 I knew of no suitable book, I did not even know that any 

 British floras existed, and having no one to help me I was 

 obliged to look among the advertisements of scientific or edu- 

 cational publications that came in my way. At length, soon 

 after we came to Neath, David Rees happened to bring in 

 an old number of the Gardener's Chronicle, which I read with 

 much interest, and as I found in it advertisements and re- 

 views of books, I asked him to bring some more copies, which 

 he did, and I found in one of them a notice of the fourth 

 edition of Lindley's " Elements of Botany," which, as it was 

 said to contain descriptions of all the natural orders, illus- 

 trated by numerous excellent woodcuts, I thought would be 

 just the thing to help me on. The price, iay. 6d., rather 

 frightened me, as I was always very short of cash; but hap- 

 pening to have so much in my possession, and feeling that I 

 must have some book to go on with, I ordered it at Mr. Hay- 

 ward's shop. 



When at length it arrived, I opened it with great expecta- 

 tions, which were, however, largely disappointed, for although 

 the larger part of the book was devoted to systematical botany, 

 and all the natural orders were well and clearly described, 

 yet there was hardly any reference to British plants — not a 

 single genus was described, it was not even stated which 

 orders contained any British species and which were wholly 

 foreign, nor was any indication given of their general distri- 

 bution or whether they comprised numerous or few genera 

 or species. The inclusion of all the natural orders and the 

 excellent woodcuts illustrating many of them, and showing 

 the systematic characters by dissections of the flowers and 

 fruits, were, however, very useful, and enabled me at once 

 to classify a number of plants which had hitherto puzzled me. 

 Still, it was most unsatisfactory not to be able to learn the 

 names of any of the plants I was observing, so one day I 

 asked Mr. Hayward if he knew of any book that would help 



