PREFACE.
Apart from botanical science, there is perhaps no subject of
inquiry connected with plants of wider interest than that suggested
by the study of folk-lore. This field of research has been largely
worked of late years, and has obtained considerable popularity in
this country, and on the Continent.
Much has already been written on the folk-lore of plants, a factwhich has induced me to give, in the present volume, a brief
systematic summary--with a few illustrations in each case--of the
many branches into which the subject naturally subdivides itself. It is
hoped, therefore, that this little work will serve as a useful handbook
for those desirous of gaining some information, in a brief concise
form, of the folk-lore which, in one form or another, has clustered
round the vegetable kingdom.
T.F. THISELTON-DYER.November 19, 1888.