\- 1 PREFACE. 



The uses of the natural arrangement in abridging the labor of 

 acquisition and aiding the memory of the learner are most im- 

 portant, and its advantages to cultivators, to physicians, — to 

 all who are seeking to enlarge their knowledge of the useful 

 or dangerous properties of plants, that they may be able to 

 avail themselves of the one, or counteract the other, to gain ma- 

 terials for the arts, or remedies or antidotes in medicine, are too 

 many to enumerate and too obvious to be further insisted upon. 



In the Conspectus, or Distribution into Families and Genera, 

 1 have attempted to offer a substitute, so far as the plants treat- 

 ed of in this Report are concerned, for the arrangement by the 

 artificial system. This attempt I submit with many misgivings. 

 If it shall be considered a failure, it may at least serve to aid 

 others in more successfully accomplishing the object. 



My sketches of the natural families, and, in a considerable 

 degree, of the genera, are necessarily drawn mostly from books ; 

 and, as they are taken from the standard works of the science, 

 Endlicher, Lindley, Torrey, and others, are usually given with- 

 out particular acknowledgment of the source. Botanists will 

 here, however, find some points touched upon which have not 

 usually received much attention from scientific writers. 



The descriptions of the species of all the trees, and nearly all 

 the shrubs, are my own, except where I have expressly given 

 credit to others. To collect my materials, I have scoured the 

 forests in almost every part of the State, from the western hills 

 of Berkshire to Martha's Vineyard, and from the banks of the 

 Merrimack to the shores of Buzzard's and Narragansett Bays. 

 The leisure of several summers was first spent in ascertaining 

 what the ligneous plants of Massachusetts are, and how they 

 are distributed. If I have not discovered new species, I have 

 found new localities for several oaks, willows, poplars, pines, 

 and birches, and some others of less importance, and have thus 

 enlarged the Flora of the State. That some species have escaped 

 me is altogether probable, as, even in the summer of 1845, 1 found 

 the Red Birch growing abundantly on a branch of the Merrimack, 

 some hundreds of miles further north than it had previonslv 

 been noticed by any botanist: 



Al'ie- having become familiar with the trees and their local- 



