X 
PREFACE. 
the Indigenous plants of Switzerland, printed at 
Bern in three volumes, and other botanic works. 
Dr. Brown has given the characters of the plants of 
Jamaica, in his natural hiftory of that ifland, print- 
ed at London in 1756. Dr. Forfter and his fon 
have added to the treafures of botany, the charac- 
ters of a great number of new phnts, collected in • 
their late voyage to the South fea, and publilhed at 
London in 1776. 
Befides thofe already mentioned, many eminent 
botanic writers have appeared in the prefent age; 
as Miller, Hill, and Hudfon in England; Gorter, 
Wachendorf, and N. L. Burman in Holland; Mo- 
nier, Guettard, Sauvages, and Buchoz in France; 
Kramer, Jacquin, Schreber, SchasfFer, and Crantz in 
Germany ; Ileygar in Poland ; Oeder, Muller, and 
Botboll in Denmark; Vandel in Portugal; Bonelli 
in Italy, and others in different parts of Europe. 
After this brief view of the progrefs of botany, 
Gollecled from various authors, it remains to give 
an account of wdiat is attempted in the following 
fheets. 
The defign of this Flora is to exhibit a catalogue 
of Britifh plants, difpofed in the moft natural me- 
thod, \vith their effential characlers according to 
the greateft improvements in botany. A diftribu- 
tion perfcclly natural has been long in vain fought 
after, and perhaps may never be obtained. The 
method of Ray, as approaching neareft to it, is here 
followed, with fuch variations in the characters and 
arrangement of the claffes as were neceffary to ren- 
der it uniform. Moft of the titles of the claffes are 
borrowed from the Fragmenta methodi naturalis of 
Linnaeus; fome of them are applied with no great 
propriety, and are only made ufe of for want of 
better. 
In the genera, Linnaeus is moftly followed; the 
characT:ers are taken from the tenth edition of his 
SyjUmn 
