102 
KEMARKS ON THE PREPARATION 
botanists are appealed to for assistance in compiling a local 
Flora, of what value is the bulk of their notes and records ? 
When our author is informed that Ranunculus aquatilis has 
been gathered in such a situation, what significance can he 
possibly attach to the circumstance ? None whatever. He 
is supposed to be well acquainted with three or four distinct 
species, which come under this particular aggregate, and what- 
ever he may think of the other segregates, which are frequently 
separated from it, he wishes to record them all, if found in his 
locality, by names which will tell precisely what is meant. 
In this way only can the special distribution of the segregates 
be ascertained ; and to exclude these from the Flora, would rob it 
of much value, if not render it entirely useless. 
The requirements of science therefore will make it necessary 
to arrange the I’lora on a broad basis, and the writer probably 
cannot do better than follow the London Catalogue, or Babington’s 
“Manual”; being careful to state explicitly which edition is 
adopted. 
The work of compilation will commence with the search for, 
and examination of, old records relating to the locality. Some 
of the more noteworthy plants will probably have attracted 
attention a century or two ago, when, in the early dawn of the 
day of science, the first field botanists went forth through the 
land. And these early notes, mingled though they may be 
with much, that now proves to be erroneous and absurd, are 
often of great interest, and afford, in some cases, valuable 
evidence on the nativity of rare plants still surviving in their 
ancient habitats. 
Towards the end of last century, Mr. Sowerby gathered 
Tragopogon jjorHfolius in a field by the Avon, below Cook’s 
Folly ; and the specimen is figured in Smith’s “ English Botany.” 
The plant seems to have disappeared from that locality shortly 
after it was seen by Mr. Sowerby, and for very many years his 
