EARLIER BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS. 13 



of life from the lowest to the highest forms, the trul}" natural order, 

 and at the present time generally accepted as such by biologists. The 

 study of plants is now coming to be generally conducted in accordance 

 with these views, and the natural system of the vegetable kingdom, as 

 enunciated in the classical work cited, has already been adopted in the 

 most important works on descriptive botany in this country which 

 have lately made their appearance, and will without doubt be followed 

 in similar publications during another generation. 



NOMENCLATUKE. 



In nomenclature the principle of priority, regarded as the funda- 

 mental one, is strictly adhered to in the present work. This was first 

 advocated by De Candolle at the International Botanical Congress at 

 Paris in 1867, and its application was developed by American botanists 

 at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at Rochester, in 1892, and through the rules reported by the 

 conmiittee on nomenclature which were adopted at the next meeting 

 of the botanical club of the association held at Madison, Wis., in 

 August, 1893. 



The applications of plants to the use of man are briefly alluded to 

 under the abbreviated head of Economic, and a list of the cultivated 

 plants of the State is given at the close of the volume. The fuller 

 treatment of the relations of the plant life of Alabama to the necessi- 

 ties or comfort of mankind was at first contemplated as a part of this 

 volume, but, on account of the expansion of the other matter, has had 

 to be deferred. • 



HISTORY OF THE EARLIER BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS OF 

 ALABAMA. 



In regard to its vegetable productions Alabama, like the rest of the 

 territory fronting the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi, remained 

 until the last quarter of the eighteenth century a terra incognita. 



W^ILLIAM BAllTKAM. 



The tirst description of these productions is given by William 

 Bartram,^ in his account of his memorable travels through the South- 

 ern States, in the years 1773 to 1778. This intrepid explorer of the 

 botany of Southeastern North America entered the State to all 

 appearance somewhere near the middle of its eastern border, at the old 

 ^Muscogee town Uche (the site of which can at present not l>e exactly 

 located), after a journey of three da3\s reaching the Indian settlements at 

 Tallassee on the Tallapoosa River. In his account of his travels from 

 the Tallapoosa Valley to the coast Bartram depicts most graphically the 



' Travels through North and South CaroUna, Georgia, east and west Forida, etc. 

 Philadelphia, 1791. 



