PREFACE. Vll 



while the stores of his collecting-book will make " a 

 wet day at an inn" very different from "the wet day" 

 so graphically described by WASHINGTON IRVING. 



It unfortunately happens that the majority of 

 botanical works contemplate instructing pupils deter- 

 mined to be professionally devoted to the study they 

 develope ; but as comparatively few non-medical per- 

 sons contemplate such an entire dedication of their 

 time as this supposes, they soon shrink from the 

 armed array of technicalities that they see enclosing 

 them around, and give up the attack in despair 

 finding, as in the old editions of ^Esop's Fables, that 

 " the moral" is so lengthy when compared with the 

 tale. Other "Introductions" throw down their sugared 

 lumps for the mere child, forgetting that the child, if 

 a student of botany at all, requires not this " gilding 

 of refined gold," or " painting the lily," -the zest of 

 occupation and wandering abroad being a sufficient 

 stimulus for him. It is the adult, never led to think of 

 Botany in his youth, that requires to be tempted, and 

 this can be only done by pointing out the pleasure and 

 satisfaction resulting from a personal examination of 

 " Every herb that sips the morning dew." 



I therefore claim to be on the recruiting service, 

 and with this special object in view, amid " the world 

 of light, and dews, and summer airs," I have brought 

 together from the woods, meads, and mountains, those 

 delicate gems that seemed best suited for the purpose 

 I had in view 



