11 
Preface. 
taking in hand one group of orders, and collecting from 
all sources available in South Africa, such information as 
seemed desirable for the end in view, I hope that I have 
been able to prepare a work which will lessen to a consider- 
able extent, to future students of this subject, the difficulties 
that have hitherto presented themselves ; and which will 
give, in a collected form, most of the particulars required. 
Such a work must necessarily be in part compiled 
from previous writers, and I have, throughout, given the 
authorities quoted. 
The whole of the descriptions, however, as well as the 
figures, are my own, and taken from live specimens where 
these were obtainable, or from dried specimens in my own 
herbarium, or in some of the leading Cape herbaria. 
In the cases where all these were defective, the authori- 
ties of Kew have, with their constant willingness, assisted 
greatly by sending specimens collected in this or other 
countries of what were known or recorded to be South 
African species. 
The earlier chapters are reproduced from my “ Hand- 
book of Kafifrarian Ferns,” but altered so as to meet the 
wider area ; and most of the plates prepared for that work 
are again used here. 
The synonyms given are mostly what occur in works 
on African plants, and do not by any means exhaust the 
list of names applied to some of the species. 
Without a visit to Europe, it is of course impossible for 
me to verify all these synonyms, but I have found occasion 
in a good few cases to differ from Kuhn, mostly regarding 
species originated by Pappe and Rawson. 
