x INTRODUCTION 
this day actually explored, and that often very inadequately, by 
Humboldt, Martius, myself and others, there should still remain 
some 50,000 or even 80,000 species undiscovered.” 
That was in 1864, and only a few of these new things have 
since been introduced. Think, then, of the enormous number 
yet to come from the warmer regions of the earth, that will 
flourish here and help to beautify the gardens and homes of our 
state. Hundreds of new things are coming in every year and in 
many cases we receive almost no information with’ them. We 
learn nothing of their habitats, whether they are trees, shrubs 
or vines, nor anything of the treatment they need. Is it any 
wonder that much of our gardening is merely an experiment, 
that we lose a large number of our finest plants because we do 
not know how to give them proper treatment? 
Indeed, for that matter, we scarcely know more of a great 
number of plants which are described in standard works on gar- 
dening and are offered for sale by nurserymen. The grower here 
must very often find these things out by his own, often bitter, 
experience. He constantly finds himself planting things in the 
wrong places, in improper soil, with wrong conditions of light 
and shade and moisture; what he gives them for fertilizer may 
be poison, and what he intends for the kindest treatment may 
ruin them. It will sometimes happen that he will have plants 
for years which do no good under various kinds of treatment 
that with something still different begin to flourish. Again and 
again I have tried plants under different conditions, losing one 
after another until I concluded they were not adapted and could 
not be grown here. Then, perhaps, I would see the same thing 
growing for others like the proverbial green bay tree, and after 
a trial under the right conditions it would succeed with me. 
It seems to be reasonable, then, that if any one here has had 
any considerable experience in growing ornamentals in Florida 
his knowledge, his successes and failures must be of some value 
if given to others who have had little or no opportunities along 
such lines, but who want to grow plants. This little work is in 
no sense whatever a manual of gardening or an encyclopedia of 
plants. Any one who has an extensive collection, or who culti- 
vates on a large scale, should by all means have one or more 
