CHAP. II. 



CONSIDERED BOTANICALLY. 



217 



that it is impossible to make out many of these from the specific characters 

 given of them in botanical works. The nicety of these distinctions has, we 

 know, deterred nmnbers from the study of practical botany ; and has pre- 

 vented others, who have had the courage to proceed, from ever hoping to 

 attain any satisfactory result. It has also (and this we consider to be the 

 most important part of the evil) prevented many persons from forming col- 

 lections of trees and shrubs, by inducing them to believe that such collections 

 could never be made anything like complete, without incurring an expense 

 greatly beyond what is really necessary. Instead of this being the case, the 

 number of hardy trees and shrubs is so small, when compared with that of 

 hardy herbaceous plants, or stove or green house plants, that there cannot 

 be the shghtest difficulty in becoming acquainted with all the species, pro- 

 vided these and the varieties are only seen together; and the cost of as 

 complete a collection of species as can be procured in the London nurseries 

 is such, as to be within tlie reach of every planter of the grounds of a villa 

 of a single acre in extent. 



The mode by which we propose to attain these objects is very simple. We 

 shall retain the botanical species and varieties in the catalogues, so far as we 

 believe them to exist ; but we shall, in every case, place before them the name 

 of the aboriginal species to which they belong : for example, in the case of the 

 genus JPraxinus, which, in om' Hortus Britanjiicus, appears to consist of 41 

 species and 12 varieties, we shall rank .30 of the species under the head of 

 F. americana, two of them under the head of F. /entiscifolia, and the re- 

 mainder under the head of F. excelsior. It may be asked, whether it would 

 not be better at once to make distinct genera of these three species ? To 

 which we answer, that it would not ; because, they are all so obviously of 

 the same general appearance, as evidently to belong to the same family. 

 There would be the same objection to separating the oak family into different 

 genera; though we think it highly probable that there are not a dozen aborigi- 

 nal species of oak in the world. Every division, or conglomeration, in botany, 

 that can assist the mind to generalise, at the same time assists it in particu- 

 larising ; and it will be found much more easy, after throwing all the races or 

 varieties of i^raxinus americana into one group, to distinguish them fi om each 

 other, than by leaving them as distinct species, and having the trouble of dis- 

 tinguishing them, not only from other races or varieties of F. americana, but 

 also from all the races or varieties of F. excelsior. 



Such are the principles which we have adopted, to guide us in arranging 

 species, races, and varieties, from a perfect conviction of their truth. If we 

 had not had an opportunity of observing, for several years past, the collec- 

 tions of trees and shrubs in the neighbourhood of London, and of studying 

 them at every season of the year, with a view to the production of this 

 work, we should never have been able to arrive at these principles, or to 

 adopt them from others, with an}^ degree of satisfaction to our own minds. 

 We are, however, perfectly satisfied that we are in the right path ; and we 

 feel convinced that all practical botanists who have had an opportunity of 

 making similar observations, and who have made them, will approve of our 

 arrangement. 



Sect. III. Of the Mode of describing Trees and Shrubs. 



It is foreign to the object of this work, to enter any farther into botanical 

 science than becomes necessary to elucidate the reasons which have in- 

 duced us to depart, in any particular, from general practice. It wiU readily 

 be conceived, from what has been stated in the preceding section, that we 

 attach no great value to what are called the specific characters of botanical 

 species; that is, of what we shall distinguish as races in some cases, and varie- 

 ties in others. The reason is, that we do not think it is often practicable to 

 discover a species, or race, by such characters alone. The specific character of 

 an aboriginal species we consider in a different point of view ; for, as we think 



