An eminent botanist and natural historian, George Simonds Boulger (1853–1922) wrote a number of books on plant life in the British Isles. He published this concise work in 1889. It opens with a brief survey of the progress made in economic botany over the years, particularly in the period 1837–87. Boulger then notes the commercial application of plants across many fields, notably food production, medicine, and the building trade. Common and botanical names are given, followed by succinct descriptions of each plant. Including both a general and synoptical index, this accessible resource can be read with profit alongside John Jackson's Commercial Botany of the Nineteenth Century (1890) and Boulger's Wood: A Manual of the Natural History and Industrial Applications of the Timbers of Commerce (1902), both of which are reissued in this series.