4 PREFACE. 



The materials formerly collected towards a Flora of New 

 England not having been published, and the first edition of 

 the Florida Bostoniensis having been long out of print, I have 

 been repeatedly desired by the publishers of the latter work 

 to prepare an enlarged edition for the press. The nature of 

 my occupations, however, has prevented me from giving the 

 requisite attention to this object, until the present period. 

 Perhaps the value of the work will not be diminished by this 

 delay. 



The edition now offered to the public contains about twice 

 the number of plants which were included in the first edition. 

 Many of the former descriptions have been enlarged or 

 amended from reexaminations of living plants, and many have 

 been written out anew. Although the work more immediate- 

 ly applies to Boston and its environs, yet I have inserted in 

 this edition all such plants as I have formerly collected and 

 described in any part of the New-England states. For the 

 convenience of students a Glossary, explanatory of the techni- 

 cal terms used in the work, is added to this edition. 



I have in general preferred to retain the older names of 

 genera, especially such as were in the first edition of this 

 work, introducing as subgenera the divisions of later botanists, 

 together with some others, to which future distributors will, no 

 doubt, give names. It is vain to attempt keeping pace with the 

 continually shifting nomenclature of plants; and it may justly 

 be questioned whether the benefit which results from making 

 generic distinctions more precise, is not more than counter- - 

 balanced by the load of synonyms which it brings with it, 

 and the discouraging necessity which it imposes on students 

 of the science, to unlearn continually what they have ac- 

 quired. 



The field of vegetation, which has already been explored, 

 is so vast, that an universal botanist is a character now un- 

 known. The most useful and satisfactory pursuit of the sci- 

 ence, for persons with common advantages, will be found in 

 attention to the native plants of a limited district. Even the 

 Flora of the United States is now too extensive to come easily 



