PROGRESS 



OF 



BOTANY IN NORTH AMERICA. 



We have for some time indulged the idea, that it would not be 

 unacceptable to those who may take an interest in Botany to find 

 in this work a brief preliminary sketch of the progress of Botanical 

 Science on this continent, especially in that portion of it belong- 

 ing, to the United States. We have also thought it might be 

 gratifying to such as have not made themselves familiar with the 

 subject, to see a list of the works which have been expressly devoted 

 to the Botany of this region, together with a notice, however 

 meagre, of the labours of those who have explored and illustrated 

 the vegetable products of our country. 



It would not be expedient, here neither do the materials in 

 possession of the writer warrant the attempt to amplify the topic. 

 He merely proposes to indicate, as far as known to him and as 

 nearly in chronological order as practicable the titles and cha- 

 racter of the several Catalogues, Floras, Scientific Journals, and 

 other publications, illustrative of North American Plants, with 

 occasional notices of their authors, and of other lovers of nature, 

 whose zeal and industry have made us acquainted with the floral 

 beauties which decorate our valleys, and hill sides, and mountain 

 tops bespangling our prairies, imparting magnificence to our 

 forests, and shedding a delicious fragrance over our land. It 

 seemed to be germain to the object of the work, to afford a passing 

 glance at what others have done, in the same field of science in 

 which a Bartram and a Marshall were so early, so earnestly, 

 and so successfully engaged. 



One of the earliest productions, if not the very first, descriptive 

 of North American plants, was a quarto volume, printed at Paris 



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