The Pictorial Flora; or British Botany Delineated/Preface
Preface.
The first great discouragement of the Botanical inquirer is usually the want of some test sufficiently accurate to determine the correctness of his conclusions, when examining plants unassisted by a scientific instructor. Books of plates are, it will be readily conceded, the best and most pleasing media, by which it is possible to convey this much-needed assistance. The generality of these, however, appear not only too unwieldy for pocket-companions, and so expensive as to preclude their being put into the hands of very young persons, but also (as Sir J. E. Smith observes), from their extreme minuteness of delineation, they too often entirely supersede the employment of verbal description; and thus give rise to a species of knowledge, at once vague and unsatisfactory. But, in the present instance, it is hoped that the miniature scale which has been adopted will not only secure the great recommendations of cheapness and portability, but will also obviate the above-mentioned objection,—the expression of character in the plants figured, furnishing the requisite degree of assistance; while their diminished size will prevent that observation of intricate minutiæ, which must inevitably give to every auxiliary the fatal facility of a royal road. This little work is, indeed, strictly intended as a manual of illustrations, and a supplement to the descriptive works of Smith, Hooker, Lindley, and Withering. The plates have, therefore, been left sufficiently broad in the margin to admit of their being bound with the largest of these works; while the bookbinder's knife will easily reduce them to the dimensions of the smallest.
The Appendix contains the florets of the grasses, and the fruit of the Callitriche and Umbeliiferous plants, delineated on a larger scale. The figures are numbered, to correspond with the species to which they belong, as drawn in the body of the work. All the figures, and one Latin index, are arranged according to the Linnean system.
Should this humble attempt be found deserving of patronage, it is in contemplation to carry forward the pioneering task thus begun, by continuing the series through Cryptogamia, so as shortly to bring before the public a cheap and complete Pictorial Encyclopædia of British Botany.
It only remains to be added, that the whole of the figures were drawn on stone by the authoress; and that the collection of specimens, from which a very large proportion of the drawings were made, was farmed during the excursions of the five last summers among the vales and meadows of the midland districts;—the woods, mountains, and glens,—the rocks and sea-shores, of the northern counties, and of Wales.
Lichfield, March 1, 1839.
Errata in the Figures.
Dele fg. 159, 181.
for Monecia read Monoecia,
In the Index.
Read Vinca major, 382. Vinca minor, 381. Atriplex littoralis, 1491. Atriplex pedunealata, 14901
Page 37, eight lines from bottom, for Trifolium resupinatum read Mellotua lecantha.