PREFACE TO PART IY. 
This, the Fourth Part of Dr. Boott’s £ Illustrations of the Genus Carex,’ carries the work on to the 600th 
Plate, which, as its lamented Author himself informed me, was the limit originally proposed. Haying, 
however, found amongst Dr. Boott’s MSS. descriptions of 108 more species, I have thought it right, considering 
the conscientious care bestowed upon them by the Author, and his unrivalled knowledge of this difficult genus, 
to append them to this Part. 
All the descriptions and drawings published herewith are exactly as left by Dr. Boott, and, except in some 
few cases, where I have appended a note (always in brackets, and signed J. D. H.), my share in the work has 
been confined to superintending the Engravings and printing the Descriptions. 
It remains to add, that the publication of this last Part is wholly due to the munificence of Mrs. Boott, 
who issues it as a tribute to the memory of her late husband,—an earnest of his abiding zeal in the elucidation 
of his favourite genus, and of his love of science and desire to promote it. In the same liberal spirit, Mrs. Boott 
(in 1865) presented the whole of Dr. Boott’s Botanical collections, MSS. and drawings, to the Royal Gardens 
of Kew, then under the Directorship of her husband’s earliest surviving friend, the late Sir W. J. Hooker. 
Royal Gardens, Kew, 
October 5th, 1807. 
JOS. D. HOOKER. 
