PREFACE.
In presenting our fortieth volume to the public, some
apology seems due for the indefinite protraction of a
work, above fifty years old, and which has been rendered
a national one by the liberality and co-operation
of all British botanists. The nature of the subject
must be our excuse, since fresh observation is every
year swelling the list of indigenous species, and that,
too, in a ratio with which our faltering steps cannot
keep pace. Among the Cryptogamia such an increase
might be anticipated; but who would have thought,
that, after fifty years had elapsed, and nearly 3000
plates been published in “ English Botany,”— there
should remain 90 reputed species of flowering plants,
exclusive of the Rubi, not yet illustrated in this work ?
Yet such is the case; and, with these before us, we
cannot write ‘ Finis’ yet, though we may congratulate
ourselves that each additional volume is a complete
and independent work.
With regard to the stores of Cryptogamia yet unfigured,
Mr. Ralfs’s beautiful monograph of the Des-
midiece has rendered it quite unnecessary to illustrate
again the species there published, and for the Marine