VI 
INTRODUCTION 
extinct, or have become much more scarce. Reasons for the 
latter are not far to seek : — 
1. — Owing to the enormous growth of population on both 
sides of the Mersey, buildings now occupy the former stations 
of many notable plants. 
2. — Farming is done better than it used to be ; the land is 
better drained, waste land is reclaimed, cultivated ground is 
kept more free from “ weeds,” the great yawning ditches 
covered over by straggling hedges are mostly things of the 
past, and even “ common ” lands and roadside borders are not 
so extensive as they used to be, despite the exertions of the 
Wirral Footpaths and Open Spaces Preservation Society. 
Owing to the more careful cleaning of seeds, “ casuals ” are 
now-a-days less frequently met with in the cultivated fields. 
3. — Nor should we omit to notice the wholesale depreda- 
tions of herb and fern gatherers, and also of unwise field 
naturalists, who, with a passing fancy, pull a plant up by the 
roots, and presently, wearying of it, drop it on the road where 
it has no chance to propagate its species. I fear, also, that 
the prize once given by the Field Club for the “three rarest 
plants,” — now happily discarded these ten years — is respon- 
sible for the diminution if not extinction of some of our most 
notable plants, such as the Lycopods. 
From a consideration of the foregoing, it will be conceded 
that a new edition of our Flora is required. 
With this end in view a committee was appointed by the 
Liverpool Naturalists’ Field Club to revise the old Flora, 
Appendices, &c. 
The following members of the Club served upon it in 
1893-4, viz. : — 
Mr. Robert Brown, past President and Botanical Referee. 
Mr. A. K. Bulley, Member of the General Committee. 
Dr. C. Theodore Green, F.L.S., President, 1901. 
