AUTHOR OF "A PLAIN AND EASY ACCOUNT OF BRITISH FERNS." FULLY ILLUSTRATED BY J. E. SOWERBY. LONDON: ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY. PREFACE. My little book on Ferns has been so kindly and well received, that I have been encouraged to supplement it with these pages on "Wild Flowers worth Notice." It has been a difficult task to make a selection, for what flowers are not worth notice? As, however, this cannot pretend to be an exhaustive treatise on the British Flora, such as exists in many forms and in large ponderous volumes compiled by profound and learned botanists, I have endeavoured to choose such plants as are representatives of particular families, and are remarkable either for their beauty of appearance or useful properties, and to give the best botanical description I can either find or make of them, so as to insure their recognition with the aid of the plate, and to add such traditions, legends, and poetical fancies, as are associated with them, in order to increase the interest with which they may be regarded. I lately heard a very eloquent and popular preacher discourse of wild flowers and the "lilies of the field," in a strain so completely in harmony with my own thoughts while I had been busy during the week in writing of all their charming and modest beauty, that I felt he too must be a lover of wild flowers and have himself rejoiced in these blessed gifts of beauty which gladden the earth, and remove from man one of the great evils of his fall. Surely, said the preacher, we may regard all that is lovely in nature, the trees, grass, blue sky, sunshine, and above all, wild flowers, as secondary blessings, which we receive and enjoy by virtue of the covenant made with Adam. No thanks to the husbandman that they spring up on every side, gladdening our hearts and cheering our lives; there they are each in its season, without care, without tending. The Great Architect of this glorious world depends not on his creatures for the preservation of these adornments of his universe, but has implanted within each tiny cup or bell that which shall perpetuate itself, and from age to age shall gladden the heart of the poorest wayfarer. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet İ |