XXIV 
artificial arrangement, like that adopted in the accompanying Key, 
becomes necessary, to enable the unscientific student to discover the 
order to which any plant he may meet with in the fields is to be 
referred, The characters given, referring only to the plants of the 
order or genus indigenous to this country, are as simple as possible, 
and will probably enable the reader to find readily the description 
and figure of any native plant in the work. 
The space allotted to the descriptive portion of our book is so 
small, that it has been impossible to give in many instances one 
sufficient, alone, for the perfect identification of the plant ; and the 
aim has been rather to add those characteristics not clearly shown 
in the figure, and which are most easily recognized, than those by 
which the species is accurately determined by the botanist : in many 
cases three or four lines would have been necessary to give such 
characters as would enable the student to determine the species 
without the aid of the figure, when one line of description only 
could be admitted; the descriptions must therefore be considered 
only subordinate to the plates. The normal habitat of each plant 
is given, together with the general height above the ground, 
its duration, time of flowering, and the colour of the flower ; the 
height and colour are, however, in most cases very variable. The 
fraction at the end of the description denotes the scale upon 
which the flower is drawn in the plate—usually one-half or two- 
thirds the natural size: the size of the flower, however, is likewise 
subject to much variation ; where no scale is made, the figure is 
the natural size. ‘The works to which references are made, are the 
Ist edition of the ‘English Botany,’ by Sowerby and Smith; the 
end edition of the same work by Sowerby and Johnson; the 7th 
edition of Hooker and Arnott’s ‘ British Flora ; the 4th edition of 
Babington’s ‘ Manual of British Botany ? and Lindley’s ‘ Synopsis 
of the British Flora,’ 

