PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
IN presenting the second volume of this work to the public, it may 
be proper to offer a few remarks, relative to the nature of the enter- 
prise, and the progress which has been made towards achieving it. As 
soon as my attention was directed to the Botany of our country, it 
appeared to me obvious, that a rich treasure of Medicinal vegetables, 
remained imperfectly described and unknown. Considering, indeed, 
the vast extent of territory, and the luxuriance and number of the ve- 
getables of the United States, its botany has been investigated with a 
surprising degree of zeal and research. But, unfortunately, only its 
nomenclatural botany, has hitherto excited much attention. I did 
believe, when I conceived the design of illustrating the medical 
botany of our country, that such a work, even though it were limit- 
ed to the delineation and description of the known medicinal plants, 
* or those supposed to be medicinal, would have the effect of directing 
a more general attention to this important subject, than had pre- 
viously been bestowed, and of giving an impulse perhaps, to the 
studies and observations of those physicians and botanists whose 
qualifications and opportunities were equally propitious to investi- 
gations of this nature. And it must be confessed, I have had my an- 
ticipation, on this point, fully realized. To this work, and that of my 
fellow traveller in the same path, may perhaps be attributed, some 
