ADVERTISEMENT. 
Qk. 
■30C 
^ A i 
An appeal to the numerous and rapidly succeeding editions of works of the same 
stamp as the one now offered to the Public, supersedes the necessity of enlarging 
upon the utility such may possess. The Compiler of the present has, from his 
infancy to the present time, been unceasingly employed in the cultivation of exotic 
plants as the means of his livelihood ; and, as far as a laborious business and Ins 
opportunities of acquirement have admitted, he has industriously endeavoured to 
combine the scientific with the practical part of his calling. That no one can have 
possessed better or readier means of inspecting the plants contained in the collec- 
tions and gardens of this country, is what he knows will not be contradicted by any 
one enabled to judge, and what the extent of his employment entitles him to say. 
Whether he has availed himself of these means in a way to have rendered himself 
equal to the present task, is for those into whose hands his publication may fall to 
decide. More than a thousand species have been added to the latest edition of any 
work of the same scope that has come to his knowledge. Every species which has 
been represented by a figure, is recorded with its figure for the synonym. No spe- 
cies has been taken up without reference to an authentic document. In one material 
point the present compilation has an advantage over any other, viz. the addition of 
the natural orders, which has been made without disturbing the sequence and 
facility of the Linnean method, maintained throughout. Natural orders, inde- 
pendent of their relation to science, are in some degree useful in practice, in as 
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