Botany 70 1 



so laborious that Doctor Watson did not feel able to continue 

 it beyond the Polypetalae. 



The " Flora of North America," by Torrey and Gray, of 

 which the first volume, including the Polypetalae, appeared in 

 1838-40, had never been continued beyond the second vol- 

 ume, including the Gamopetalce, from Caprifoliaceee through 

 the Compositce, issued in 1841-43. At that point the pub- 

 lication was suspended, for so large an amount of new mate- 

 rial had been brought together by the different government 

 expeditions and by numerous private collectors, that it was 

 decided by Professor Gray that, instead of completing the 

 "Flora" in its original form, the orders already published 

 should be entirely revised and, with the remaining orders, 

 treated in a more condensed form, omitting the longer notes 

 of the first edition, but retaining the essential part of the syn- 

 onymy and reducing the descriptions to as few words as 

 possible. The synoptical plan was adopted as being, all 

 things considered, the briefest and best. Since the cost of 

 printing such a synoptical flora was too great for private 

 resources, and since the work offered no prospect of pecu- 

 niary profit to publishers, the Institution determined to 

 aid the undertaking, and expended several thousand dollars 

 in furthering this important botanical work, which probably 

 cost its author nearly as much more. In consideration of 

 this. Professor Gray was allowed to issue, for his own benefit, 

 a first edition of five hundred copies of the work before the 

 Institution attempted to publish its own edition. The order 

 of publication was arranged so that the first part should in- 

 clude the Gamopetalae after Compositae, the subject treated 

 being, therefore, a direct continuation of the original " Flora" 

 of Torrey and Gray. This part, with the title of " Synoptical 

 Flora of North America," Volume 11, Part i, was issued by the 

 author in May, 1878, and formed a volume of four hundred 



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