Page:The Botanist's Guide Through the Counties of Northumberland and Durham (Vol 1).djvu/17

Rh the public, in hopes that it may prove useful to such as wish to study Nature in the field as well as in the closet. As botanists however have been frequently misled by the insertion of plants in provincial Floras, which, by cultivation or some other cause, had been extirpated a long time previous to their habitats having been published, and the value of the following pages chiefly depending upon their accuracy in this particular, the Editors have thought it proper on that account, to state the authorities on which the catalogue rests. Those species to which no person's name is annexed, may be considered as having hot only been observed, but specimens of them collected by the Editors themselves; yet they do not on all occasions claim the merit of original discovery, but are happy to acknowledge they are greatly indebted to the communications of various botanical friends, particularly to the Rev. J. Harriman of Gainford, for pointing out such indigenous plants as are worthy of notice on the romantic banks of the Tees; and to Mr E. Robson for similar information respecting the vicinity of Darlington. The south and south-west of the county of Durham having long been In the possession of such able naturalists, an evident superiority, not