PUBLISHEES' NOTE 
The drawings from which the plates in this volume have been 
prepared were made by Mrs. Vallentin after a visit to England, 
during which she interested herself in the study of botany and 
received valuable aid in the examination and drawing of plants 
from Miss Matilda Smith, of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
On her return to the Falkland Islands she began to make draw- 
ings from the living plants growing in the Islands with a view 
to the preparation of an illustrated flora of her native land. 
The work, however, was interrupted by a serious breakdown in 
health ; and when it became evident that its resumption must 
be indefinitely postponed, her husband decided to issue the 
present volume from such materials as were already available. 
He entrusted the arrangement of the drawings to Miss Smith 
and the descriptions to Mrs. Cotton. 
Mrs. Cotton desires to acknowledge her indebtedness to the 
following works for much information : — " Flora Antarctica," 
by Sir Joseph D. Hooker ; " Flora of the Falkland Islands," 
by C. H. Wright (in the Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 
xxxix) ; and " A Botanical Survey of the Falkland Islands," 
by Carl Skottsberg. 
The order of arrangement follows closely that adopted in 
British floras and herbaria, and as the series includes examples 
of most of the natural orders of flowering plants and ferns 
found in the Islands, the work may not only be of interest to 
those who desire to identify the plants more commonly met 
with, but also to some who may be tempted to enter upon a 
more systematic examination and arrangement of allied species. 
