IV PREFACE. 



be found to have published under new names 

 some species already known in Europe, some 

 which may have been imperfectly or incorrectly 

 described by preceding authors, or some which 

 he himself may have mistaken. While there- 

 fore he hopes that the errors from these sources 

 will not be numerous, he could yet only offer it 

 as «a sketch" in which he has included^all such 

 plants within the limits of Soutli-Carolina and 

 Georgia as he has had an opportunity of exam- 

 ining, and such as had been ascribed to the same 

 districts by Botanists on whose authority he 

 thought himself compelled to rely. 



He trusts, however, that this Sketch will be 

 found to have somewhat extended the know- 

 ledge of the Botany of the Southern States; 

 that it contains descriptions of many plants not 

 heretofore known; that it has rectified some er- 

 rors; that it has elucidated some of the doubt- 

 ful plants in the works of our older writers, and 

 that it contains a careful, and he hopes a faithful 

 description of such plants as he himself has seen. 



In the time which has elapsed since the pub- 

 lication of the early numbers of this work many 

 changes have taken place in Botanical nomen- 

 clature, many reforms which by limiting more 

 strictly generic characters, have led to many 

 subdivisions of old genera. The natural order 

 of the Gramineae in particular has been remo- 

 delled, and in some of the most natural families 

 the Cruciferae, the Umbellifer^, and the Com- 

 positae, an almost entirely new distribution of 



