INTRODUCTION. 



This book is written in the hope that it may be useful 

 in disseminating a better knowledge of the general char- 

 acter, uses, and culture of hardy herbaceous and alpine 

 perennial flowers. It will be admitted, I believe, very 

 generally, that an intimate Imowledge of these neglected 

 classes of plants has not for many years been regarded 

 as a necessary accomplishment in a professional gar- 

 dener. Herbaceous and alpine plants have been so long 

 banished from gardens of all grades, that they have be- 

 come unfamiliar to those even who once knew them 

 v/ell ; and the mass of those who have embraced garden- 

 ing as a business pursuit or a means of recreation within 

 the past twenty-five or thirty years, have had few oppor- 

 tunities for acquiring any but the slightest knowledge of 

 them of either a practical or theoretical kind. For until 

 within the past few years, so little general interest had 

 been taken for long previously in these old useful tribes 

 of plants, that even the periodical press, on which we 

 depend for guidance in our tastes and objects, has rarely 

 been encouraged to make any but passing allusions to 



