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PllEFACE. XI
Botanica. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the
necessity of increasing the number of substantives to denote
the several organs, and their principal variations, instead
of using the old substantives with the addition of appropriate
adjectives to limit their signification, yet as these new sub-
stantives are used by the greatest part of modern authors,
and have not yet been explained in our language, there
appeared a necessity of prefixing an introduction to botany,
principally for the purpose of giving a connected view of
the anatomy of vegetables, according to the latest views of
Mirbel, De Candolle, and other eminent botanists. The
figures annexed to this part of the work have been very
carefully selected, with a view of comprising as much
information as possible in a small compass.
In consequence of the addition of this introduction, this
work contains all that is necessary for the student of English
botany, unless he is desirous of verifying his first steps in
the science by a reference to the figures of plants. The
very high price of Sowerby's English Botany, which is
seldom to be procured for less than fifty guineas, rendering
it inaccessible to the generality of students, it has been
judged preferable to refer to Gerarde's Herbal as edited
by Johnson, and the Theatre of Parkinson, either of which
may be purchased at a very moderate price; and their
figures, although only wood cuts, will give a good idea of
the plants. Some may prefer the figures of those parts
only which characterize the genera, and of these the
cheapest is Tournefort's Institutiones Rei herbarise, whose
genera in general correspond with those of Ray. But
these helps desert the student when he attempts the study
of the plants which were called by the ancient botanists,
on account of their not bearing flowers, imperfect plants
and by Linnaeus, because he could not detect in them the
presence of the sexual organs, which his preconceived
opinion required to be present in all plants, cryptogamia,
that is to say, secret marriages. Should the student en-
deavour to penetrate this, the higher botany, and wish for
;