P R E F A C E .

I have thought it necessary to preface this Method of Plants, which I call "improved," with a few points that I believe are in the reader's interest to know.
1. What first motivated me to treat this subject and attempt to arrange plants Stirpes; a Latin term for the stocks or lineages of plants, used here to mean the plants themselves into an orderly system and method.
2. How far I have progressed up to this point.
3. Why I have undertaken this new edition of my Method.

Regarding the first point: in the year 1667, the most Reverend man and our eternally honored friend Lord John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester—who is now among the saints original Greek: ὁ νῦν ἐν ἁγίοις; a respectful formula indicating the person has died and is of blessed memory—earnestly requested that I organize Trees and Herbs into a systematic method. This was to complete his Philosophical Tables for a Universal Character (a draft of which he was then bringing to light original Latin: parturibat; literally "was in labor with," meaning he was in the process of creating or publishing the work). In that work, however, I was not free to follow the natural order of things; instead, I was forced to divide each group into exactly three sub-categories, as the specific design of his project allowed for neither more nor fewer. Nevertheless, not daring to refuse anything to such a great Man and such a great Friend, I completed the task as a hurried work original Latin: tumultuario opere; work produced in haste or under pressure and almost spontaneously.

By this matter, Lord Robert Morison, a Scotsman from Aberdeen and a Doctor of Medicine, was deeply offended. Perhaps he feared that it might somehow diminish the fame and authority he held among Botanists—which was not small—nor