PREFACE. vii 



plants, to give their botanical names, and tlie name of 

 the natural family to which they belong, and by giying 

 the common name of the latter, with a brief description 

 of the species, I have made it possible for the uninitiated 

 in botany to form some idea of the nature of the plant 

 about which he is reading. And in order that the 

 book may be also useful to the scientific botanist, I 

 have given a list of the genera noticed in the work, 

 which number 1163, under which are noticed about 

 1600 subjects. 



With regard to the natural families adopted by me, 

 it is necessary to state that botanists differ widely in 

 the characters of families, some placing many genera 

 under one family which other botanists separate under 

 two or more. It is here only necessary to notice 

 the two latest general arrangements, the first being 

 The Vegetable Kingdom of Dr. Lindley, published 

 in 1853, in which he characterises 303 families; the 

 second, the Genera Plantarum of Bentham and 

 Hooker, which commenced being pubhshed in 1862, 

 and is not yet completed, in which two, three, and 

 four of Lindley's families are united under one — for 

 example, the Apple family (Pomaceae), with the Plum 

 family (Drupacese), are considered as tribes of the Eose 

 family (Eosace^). The reasons for such unions may be 

 readily understood by scientific botanists ; but for the 

 sake of simplicity, and not to perplex the unbotanical 

 reader with unnecessary botanical words, I have, as 

 hitheito, adopted the families as characterised by 

 Lindley. It is said that there are nearly 200,000 

 species of plants now known to botanists ; of that 

 number only a moiety are requisite to furnish man 



