Abstract
IN the preface to the first edition of this book the author explained that he had often been asked to recommend a work which should enable persons having no previous knowledge of botany to name the wild flowers they might gather in their country rambles. His object in writing his “Hand-book” was simply to meet this demand, and experience has shown that it is well adapted for its purpose. Sir Joseph Hooker, we need hardly say, has revised his late friend's work with perfect tact and judgment, adding considerably to its value by bringing it into accordance with the latest knowledge, without making any essential changes. Mr. Bentham held that previous writers on our indigenous flora had exaggerated the number of distinct species. His opinions on this subject, Sir Joseph Hooker thinks, should not be dismissed hastily, since they were the views “of a great master of systematic and descriptive botany who had collected and studied a large proportion of the prevalent forms of British plants in a living state, not only in our three kingdoms, but in France, Scandinavia, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey.”
Hand-book of the British Flora.
By George Bentham Fifth Edition. Revised by Sir J. D. Hooker, F.R.S. (London: L. Reeve and Co., 1887.)
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Hand-book of the British Flora . Nature 35, 341 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/035341b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035341b0