Flora Scotica, or A description of Scottish plants : arranged both according to the artificial and natural methods ; in two parts / by William Jackson Hooker.

  • Hooker, William Jackson, Sir, 1785-1865.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Flora Scotica, or A description of Scottish plants : arranged both according to the artificial and natural methods ; in two parts / by William Jackson Hooker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    PREFACE. The general division of Scotland into Highlands and Lowlands is in itself sufficiently indicative of the nature of the country, and of its aptness to the purposes of Natural Hjstory. The Lowlands, adjoining the English frontier, present an extensive and level range of the most fertile corn-fields, Interspersed with moist woods, and occasional tracts of barren heath. In a surface thus diversi- fied, and also containing a correspondent variety of soil, the bo- tanist will meet with the greater number of the plants peculiar to the southern districts of Great Britain; while the mountains and rocks of the Highlands furnish a considerable number of others, for which search has in vain been made in any other part of the United Kingdom. Such a country, though happily now forming an undivided portion of the empire, is of itself so naturally separate, and was so long regarded politically so, that there can scarcely be raised a question as to how far it deserves the distinction of having a volume dedicated expressly to the elucidation of its vegetable productions. In England, as well as upon the continent, the ad- vantage of partial Floras has been generally recognised : they sup- ply the natives of peculiar districts with the means of examining and ascertaining the plants of their vicinity at a comparatively small expense ; they furnish an important contribution to vege- table geography; and they record a multitude of facts which would otherwise escape observation; as well as contain in many instances more laboured and more minute descriptions than can be admitted into works of more extensive range. Sibbald, as early as the year 1684, published his Scotia Illus- trata, slve Prodromus Histories Naturalis Scotice, in two small folio volumes, the second of which was devoted exclusively to plants. This work was shortly afterwards attacked with severe invectives, which he met with a Vindicice contra Prodromomas-