viii PREFACE. 
Respecting the number of scientific terms herein explained, we may be allowed 
to say that no other popular glossary contains such a copious collection. Their 
explication is in exact accordance with the views of the most learned botanists, 
merely being reduced to dimensions which best comport with simplicity and 
conciseness. 
Considering the immense field which this volume occupies, the accenjt ualion of 
^generic, specific, and all purely botanical names that are not Anglicised, must be 
regarded as a highly valuable characteristic. By the extreme perspicuity of the 
I marks employed, their full and universal adaptation, and the fact that they were all 
^ supplied by the first botanist in England, (Dr. Bindley,) the botanic student or 
other assiduous examiner will here meet with a fund of accurate instruction in this 
particular, to which only the most laboured and extremely expensive publication 
can at all pretend. 
It might he assumed that the signs used are sufficiently common to require no 
comment ; hut, for the benefit of the less informed, we shall just show the manner 
in which they apply. In the first place, the vowel in each word over which the 
primary accent occurs, sustains all the emphasis of the syllabic pronunciation, 
independently of the real nature of the sign. Further, the employment of the long 
( quantity ("“) or the short quantity ('') simply denotes that the vow’el above which 
they are placed is to be sounded long and broadly, or short and abruptly. To 
, vary our expression, the short vowel is perpetually pronounced in conjunction with 
the next consonant, and the long one has its own distinct and final sound, as if 
^ the letter were doubled, hut the voice rested on each. In all cases when the list 
I syllable hut one is marked long (“), the accent falls on that syllable ; and when 
1 the last syllable but one is marked short (''), the accent falls on the last syllable 
but two. Thus Romaniis would he accented Romdnus, and tricolor would be 
accented tricolor, although the i on which the accent is placed is short. It is 
extremely important to bear this in mind. 
To reduce the work to the smallest practicable size, it has been found requisite 
to abridge the language conveying many of the details, and that this may be rightly 
comprehended, we shall now enter on its elucidation. First, the numerical figures 
which follow the recognised specific names in the general list, and such as precede 
the synonymes, have, as before hinted, a direct connexion with each other, 
establishing the identity. Thus, in page 1, under the genus Acacia, the synonyme 
“1. A. acicularis” is hut another appellation for “ A. Brownei 1,’^ in the 
