PREFACE. ix 
ensuing text ; “ 2. Mimosa tortuosa,” is sjmonymous with “ A. Burmanniaiia 
2 \ and so on, in like manner, throughout the w’hole. Next, the authorities for 
the generic names are very often shortened, and a list of all those, with the country 
in which they rose to celebrity, will be subjoined. Again, the descriptive peculi- 
arities of species are classed in seven columns, in which the colours of the flowers, 
— the month during which they commonly blossom, — their habitude, whether as 
concerns the temperature they receive, their duration, or general nature, — their 
native climate, and the year in w^hich they were first introduced to Britain, — are 
all duly registered. Where either or several of these circumstances are omitted, 
it is to he inferred that they have not been accurately ascertained. In the case of 
Epiphytes, Palms, and Grasses, they are simply noted as such, since their habits 
are universally the same. All other trifling particulars are regularly and efficiently 
interpreted in the catalogue of abbreviations. 
Having thus specified the objects, classification, and utility of the work, w^e have 
only to commend it to the kind indulgence of the public, convinced that, w'hatever 
may be its failings — and in such an extensive compilation some defects must 
naturally he anticipated — they are neither glaring, momentous, nor, notwithstanding 
the smallness of the type, equal to those of any similar production. To the 
gardener^ and all who cultivate or delight in acquainting themselves with plants, 
either for enrichment or amusement ; hut emphatically to such persons as wish 
to study the nature and history of vegetation in the garden, where alone they can 
hope these features to be permanently impressed on the memory, the Botanical 
Pocket Dictionary has claims which nothing at present existing or likely to he 
issued can supplant or diminish. 
JOSEPH PAXTON. 
Chatsworth, 
July , 1840. 
