Zi 



INTIIODUCTION. 



New plants, I liave seldom been able to publish 

 my figures. My edition of Cupani, and the 

 Amer. plants engraved before 1815, were lost 

 plates and all in my Shipwreck of 1815 with my 

 herbarium, only few copies have survived. I 

 only gave 100 wooden cuts in my medical flora, 

 and about 80 in my School of flora; 36 in Amer- 

 ican Florist, cheap popular works. Thus I re- 

 solved to publish my 500 Icones rariorum in 

 mpt. and also my Autikon Botanikon or Self 

 figures by Specimens of 2500 new or rare plants^ 

 to be sold at the same rate as the actual usual 

 printed figures. 



At last in 1836 I began to print my New 

 Flora of North America, Supplemental to all 

 the others, with 1000 N. Sp. at least; which has 

 led to the actual Synopsis or Mantissa, as a re- 

 capitulation of all my scattered works and ob- 

 servations, or their principal facts. 



As to classical arrangement I have aimed at 

 none at first, because my own natural improved 

 families, now amounting to 375 would have still 

 more staggered the reluctant Botanists. I di- 

 vide this work in Centuries with numbers, keep- 

 ing often together akin Genera. — This is the 

 actual plan of many books of botanical novelties. 

 Hooker, Lindley &.c. The alphabetical order 

 would have been useless where so many new 

 Names occur, but Indexes shall be given, tables 

 of Natural Orders at the outset, and a general 

 classification at the end of the whole work. 

 Those ajithors who admit only what they see, or 

 upon trust of particular friends, would not proba- 

 bly pay more attention to my researches, if 

 given under any other garb. Those who seek 

 for truth and new materials, will easily find both 

 here, and mould them into their own shape or 



