PREFACE. vii 
from the most varied and distant points of the geographical 
areas of the several species.” 
In respect of the views here advanced as to the limitation of 
the species of our indigenous Flora, it must be remembered that 
they are those of a great master of systematic and descriptive 
Botany who had collected and studied a large proportion of the 
prevalent forms of British plants in a living state, not only in 
our three kingdoms, but in France, Scandinavia, Russia, Ger- 
many, Switzerland, and Turkey. Bentham’s conclusions were 
not-eritical, but neither were they superficial; he was an acute 
and. indefatigable observer, gifted with remarkable synthetic 
powers, and as conscientious as judicious in the uses he put 
them to. The result he arrived at was, that the specific term 
should have a much wider application than prevailed in most 
local Floras. : | 
It remains that I should explain the course I have adopted 
in the delicate task of rendering a new edition of my late 
friend’s work as complete as possible without tampering with 
his views. I have not amplified or modified the descriptions 
of orders, genera, and species, except in rare cases of error or 
omission. The very few species recently added to the British 
Flora, and which I think that he would have admitted, are 
entered between brackets [ |. In cases where I think he would 
have regarded them as varieties I have briefly described them (in 
brackets) as such under the species to which, I believe, he would 
have attached them. With regard to certain well-marked 
varieties admitted as species by most botanists, but which he 
has dismissed with a mention, I have added their characters ; 
in all such cases especially as where I think that the absence 
of such characters would lead the beginner to suppose that he 
had a different species under his eye. 
In many instances I have been compelled to revise and 
materially add to the localities, and especially the continental 
and exotic distribution of the species. It is evident that this 
