

A R 



PREFACE. 



THOUGH no apology is necessary for an attempt at a systematic enu- 

 meration of our plants, the compiler desires briefly to state the motives that 

 led him to undertake the work. 



Having been for some time engaged in the preparation of a CANADIAN 

 FLORA, on the plan of De Caadolle's " Flore Franchise," he of course felt 

 anxious to embody in it, not only the result of the researches of our earlier 

 Botanists, like Pursh, Michaux, Hooker, &c.,but also the scattered knowledge 

 stored away in the herbariums and note-books of a large number of careful, 

 conscientious investigators, who, by working up the Botany of their own 

 localities, are adding year by year to our knowledge of the subject. Resolved 

 before finally correcting the manuscript for the press, to make an appeal to 

 the Students of Canadian Botany for any additional facts regarding the dis- 

 tribution and variation of species, influence of latitude and altitude, local 

 causes, &c.: the question next arose in what way this could best be done. The 

 plan of a numbered Catalogue was fixed upon, with the hope that while it 

 rendered the transmission of information about the species occurring in any 

 locality easy, it would also prove useful to amateur Botanists, by limiting 

 the number of names among which they would require to search, in deter- 

 mining specimens; and to persons forming herbariums, by aiding them in 

 effecting exchanges. 



- The author earnestly solicits any information that will assist in securing 

 accuracy in the " Flora ". He will gladly examine, name, and return at his 

 own expense, plants sent to him from any part of Canada ; and so far as the 

 nature of the work will allow, all assistance received will be carefully 

 acknowledged. In the Catalogue, the nomenclature of Professor Gray has 

 been adopted as that best known. This has been the case even where a some- 

 what different arrangement would have been employed in a larger work. 



Accuracy in a list like this is a more important consideration than tiie 

 grouping of species and a great deal of pains has been taken to secure it. 



The writings of Pursh, Michaux, Hooker, Gray, Torrey, Provencher, Brunet, 

 and others have been consulted ; the lists published in the Canadian Journal and 

 Naturalist, Annals of the Botanical Society of Canada, American Journal 



