Produced by Jason Isbell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file made using scans of public domain works at the University of Georgia.)
Many inconsistencies appeared in the original book and were retained in this version.]
The most Ornamental FOREIGN PLANTS, cultivated in the Open Ground, the Green-House, and the Stove, are accurately represented in their natural Colours.
Their Names, Class, Order, Generic and Specific Characters, according to the celebrated LINNÆUS; their Places of Growth, and Times of Flowering:
Intended for the Use of such LADIES, GENTLEMEN, and GARDENERS, as wish to become scientifically acquainted with the Plants they cultivate.
"A Garden is the purest of human Pleasures." VERULAM.
LONDON: Printed by COUCHMAN and FRY, Throgmorton-Street, For W. CURTIS, at his BOTANIC-GARDEN, Lambeth-Marsh; And Sold by the principal Booksellers in Great-Britain and Ireland. M DCC XC.
The present periodical publication owes its commencement to the repeated solicitations of several Ladies and Gentlemen, Subscribers to the Author's BOTANIC GARDEN, who were frequently lamenting the want of a work, which might enable them, not only to acquire a systematic knowledge of the Foreign Plants growing in their gardens, but which might at the same time afford them the best information respecting their culture--in fact, a work, in which Botany and Gardening (so far as relates to the culture of ornamental Plants) or the labours of LINNÆUS and MILLER, might happily be combined.
In compliance with their wishes, he has endeavoured to present them with the united information of both authors, and to illustrate each by a set of new figures, drawn always from the living plant, and coloured as near to nature, as the imperfection of colouring will admit.
He does not mean, however, to confine himself solely to the Plants contained in the highly esteemed works of those luminaries of Botany and Gardening, but shall occasionally introduce new ones, as they may flower in his own garden, or those of the curious in any part of Great-Britain.
At the commencement of this publication, he had no design of entering on the province of the Florist, by giving figures of double or improved Flowers, which sometimes owe their origin to culture, more frequently to the sportings of nature; but the earnest entreaties of many of his Subscribers, have induced him so far to deviate from his original intention, as to promise them one, at least, of the Flowers most esteemed by Florists.