92 PITTONIA. 



Imve been enlarged or amended from re-examiuations of living 

 plants, and many liave been written out aneAv. Altliongli the 

 work more immediately applies to Boston and its environs, 

 yet I have inserted in this edition all sncli plants as I have 

 formerly collected and described in any part of the New 

 England states." This second clanse reveals the autliors own 

 just— and no more than just — appreciation of the kind of 

 work he has been doing. Descriptions drawn up from living 

 I)lants are so far superior to the ordinary run of herbarium- 

 made diagnoses, that he will publish as many of them as he 

 has written, even though the plants do not belong to the 

 region corered by his title-page. We are glad that he did 

 this ; for long experience has taught us that whenever we 

 desire to know more of some eastern plant or tree than either 

 the herl^arium specimens show or the popular manuals tell, 

 in the Florula Bostoniensis we may expect to find what we 

 want; or, if the species be not therein described, w^e have 

 one more hope, and so turn to the excellent Flora Cestrica. 

 For the conveying of satisfactory intelligence about East 

 American vegetation in general, there is more good in these 

 two antiquated and half forgotten volumes than in the whole 

 three dozen editions of dry and emasculate compilation which 

 have occupied the field from the days of Amos Eaton and 



Mrs. Lincoln flown tn nnrl inAln<lii 



g the year 1890. 



But we like the Florula Bostoniensis not only on account 

 of its high-grade superiority as a book of plant description, 

 we prize it for what it tells of the character and accomplish- 

 ments of its distinguished author ; in whom one might have 

 traced the evidences of careful literary training, and general 

 scholarship, even though he had not, on the title-page, com- 

 mended himself to our appreciation by the rather generalized 

 title ■•' Professor in Harvard University." He is certainly a 

 master of that correct use of terms which is an accomplish- 

 ment quite as indispensable to good botanical writing, as the 

 ability— sometimes native with a man, sometimes acquired— 

 to see wliat nature presents. We also realize, and not without 

 some satisfaction, that while the man's school-training may 



