PREFACE. 



The favour with, which the * Handbook of the British Flora ' has been 

 received by the Public, renders it unnecessary here to repeat the reasons 

 which originally induced the preparation of a work specially destined 

 r to assist the unscientific botanist in the determination of British plants. 

 In the present edition, in order still further to facilitate that object, the 

 publishers have called in aid the experienced talent of Mr. W. Fitch, 

 who has supplied original drawings of every species included in the 

 Flora. In bringing these illustrations within a compass which should 

 enable their being printed in with the text, the Artist has had to contend 

 not only with the general difficulty of expressing the characteristic fea- 

 tures of a plant on so reduced a scale, but also of representing, within 

 spaces nearly uniform in compass, specimens which in nature are so 

 enormously different in size. This he has endeavoured in some mea- 

 sure to accomplish by including in the figure a larger or smaller portion 

 of the plant ; but circumstances do not admit of this being done to any 

 great extent. In order to give the prominent characters of the species 

 it was necessary to adopt a scale of reduction varying almost for each 

 one. The reader must therefore be careful, in judging of the relative 

 size of the foliage, flowers, etc., of two species, not to be misled by their 

 apparent size in the illustrations, without checking it by the dimen- 

 sions given in the text. The dissections which accompany each figure 

 have been generally taken from the artist's own specimens, the organs 

 selected by him for illustration being those which appeared to him the 

 most characteristic of the species or genus. 



