PREFACE. 



THIS Key is preliminary to a West Coast Botany for beginners, which will probably 

 be completed within three years. The object in publishing this skeleton in advance is 

 twofold : it will be serviceable in connection with the Popular California Flora, while ita 

 use will disclose mistakes and weak places which can be corrected and strengthened for 

 the betterment of the final work. 



The material has mostly been drawn from Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America 

 and the California Botany. Free use has also been made of Gray's and Watson's Contri- 

 butions to American Botany; Greene's monographs in the Bulletin of the California 

 Academy of Sciences, and the contributions of these and other authors in Coulter's 

 Botanical Gazette and the Bulletin of the Torrey Club. 



The intention has been to describe all polypetalous and gamopetalous plants growing 

 in the region indicated on the title page, except those belonging to the orders Umbellifera 

 and Composite ; also all the species in the endogenous orders Alismacese, Orchidace, 

 Iridacea and Liliacese. The scope of the West Coast Botany will be a little broader, 

 including some of the Apetalae and possibly a tribe of the Composite. The introductory 

 lessons and glossaries will be more ample than those of the California Flora. 



I shall be very thankful for notes of omissions, corrections, criticisms and sug- 

 gestions. 



VOLNEY RATTAN. 

 SAN FBAKCISCO, Jan. 22, 1887. 



