PREFACE. 
Under direction of the Board of Trustees, the eighth 
annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden is presented 
to the public. The seventh report was issued May 23, 
1896. Advance copies of M. Cardot’s papers on Mosses 
of the Azores and of Madeira were issued April 14, 1897. 
The reports of the Garden are sent regularly to scientific 
institutions and journals, in exchange for publications or 
specimens desirable for the library, herbarium, or plant- 
houses of the Garden. So far as possible, reprints of the 
botanical articles which they contain are sent to botanists 
occupied with a study of the same subjects. 
Any of the Garden publications not out of print may be 
purchased, at approximately the cost of publication, from 
Dr. A. E. Foote, of Philadelphia, the Cambridge Botanical 
Supply Co., of Cambridge, Mass., W. Wesley & Son, of 
London, R. Friedliinder & Sohn, of Berlin, or the under- 
signed. A list of the papers thus far published is to be 
found at page 221 of the present volume. 
WitiiaM TRELEASE. 
St. Louis, July 31, 1897. 
(3). 
