PREFACE. 
V 
endeavoured to obtain the assistance of an able botanical artist ; but, dis- 
appointed in this respect, I found it easier to depend on my own efforts. 
Unable, through infirmity, to accomplish this upon stone, as I had formerly 
done, I gladly availed myself of a new medium employed by Messrs. 
Maclure, Macdonald, and Macgregor, the eminent Lithographers, called 
their autotype process, by means of which I executed all my drawings, 
which were then transferred by them upon the stones. Some of these are 
not so successful as others : none can claim the merit of artistic produc- 
tions ; for there has been no attempt to imitate the more graceful outlines 
of living plants, as a professional artist would have done ; they are only 
what they claim to be, mere outlines traced from stiff dried specimens, of 
which they are correct representations, perhaps not less useful on that 
account to botanists in a practical point of view. 
On looking over the printed matter, I found many typical errors and 
omissions, for which some excuse may be pleaded from the desultory 
manner in which the work was printed at distant periods ; and in claiming 
indulgence on this score, I request the reader to make the indicated cor- 
rections, to which is added some new matter that appeared after the work 
was in type. The index has been made as complete as possible, so as to 
give the names of all the species mentioned in different botanical works, 
of which many are now reduced to synonyms ; so that it will be 
easy to refer each of these to its proper place, as shown under the present 
arrangement. 
84 Addison Road, Kensington. 
March 1871. 
