?V5 />!«-/ Robert* tZo^bor^ 
1 
INTRODUCTION. 
The object originally contemplated in preparing a new 
Flora of the British Islands was of a twofold nature : 
Istly, to provide the student with a description of our 
native plants, arranged according to the simplest method ; 
and, 2dly, to afford to the more experienced botanist a 
Manual, that shall be useful in the field as well as in the 
closet. In regard to the first object, the experience of 
nearly a hundred years has proved to every unpre- 
judiced mind that no system can be compared to that 
of the immortal Swede, for the facility with which it 
enables any one, hitherto unpractised in Botany, to as- 
certain the genus of some previously known plant. And 
as to the second, almost every collector in this country 
had been so habituated to the Linnaean method by the 
labours of Sir J. E. Smith, that to have presented any 
other arrangement would have been of no avail. 
In the first four editions of this Flora, therefore, the 
Linnaean method was followed ; but in order to accustom 
the reader by degrees to the Natural System, an Appendix 
was given, in which the orders were characterized, so 
far at least as related to British plants. When, however, 
a fifth edition was required, so great was the demand in 
this country for something more than the Linnaean 
method, that it was considered the time had arrived for 
A 3 
