34 
PRELIMINARY TREATISE. 
Habranthus, and Zephyranthes, very dissimilar at their 
extreme points, touch very closely at the intermediate points 
of approach, hut being properly grouped, if it should here- 
after appear (which I do not think it ever will) that a Phy- 
cella can breed with a Zephyranthes, they will stand as 
three subgenera or sections of the leading genus without 
occasion for any further alteration than that of the word 
genus, subgenus, or section. Botanists are too apt to con- 
sider that they have discharged their part when they have 
carefully defined a plant; any accurate man can do this; 
but only half the duty of a botanist has been discharged 
before he has ascertained to what other plants his specimen 
is most nearly related, and by what points it is separated 
from them ; and for that information we usually either look 
in vain, or find it stated with little consideration and cor- 
rectness. I wish to see something more like sound system 
and regularity in our proceedings ; and I protest against the 
custom of placing plants provisionally in any genus with 
which they are known not to accord. It would never have 
been done if any clear principles had been established for 
the construction of generic characters, and such cannot be 
adopted till it is clearly understood what a genus is. 
I hope that nothing in these pages will be offensive to 
any of the distinguished cultivators of the science of botany, 
from whose steps I have found it necessary to depart. It 
has been my anxious wish to pursue, with careful delibera- 
tion, the path of accurate inquiry, without using any polemic 
expression, and without depreciating the writings or setting 
at nought the opinion of any individual. If, by misfortune, 
an abrupt expression shall have been any where incautiously 
admitted, I pray that it may be considered as an oversight, 
which, if observed, would have been sedulously rectified. 
W. H. 1835. 
