vi PREFACE. 



My endeavor is to show, either in a part or all of the sections standing 

 to represent a species, both the heart and sap-wood, but with some woods 

 as the Sumach, for instance, where usually only the outermost ring, or a 

 part of it, could be said to represent the sap-wood, the display of that is 

 quite impossible. In certain other woods, as the Spruce, etc., the tran- 

 sition from sap to heart-wood is almost indistinguishable by any diiference 

 in color, and, although both may be shown in the sections, one can 

 scarcely distinguish between them. 



The text of this work has been added rather as a secondary matter, 

 to supply to those not having it in other form, such information as is of 

 importance, in connection with the wood specimens, to give a fairly good 

 acquaintance with the trees represented. It contains little, if any thing, 

 new to the botanist, but to others it is hoped it may be of some value. 



In its preparation some use has been made of my father's Elements of 

 Forestry, and thanks are due the publishers of that work Messrs. 

 Robert Clarke & Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio for the use of cuts in repro- 

 ducing a number of its illustrations. Other valuable books of reference 

 have been the works of Drs. Gray, Wood and Bessey, LeMaout and 

 Decaisne's Descriptive and Analytical Botany, Prof. C. S. Sargent's Re- 

 port on the Forest Trees of North America, (constituting Vol. IX, 

 Ninth Census of the United States, 1880), Micheaux and Nuttall's 

 North American Sylva, George B. Emerson's Trees and Shrubs of 

 Massachusetts, D. J. Browne's Trees of America, etc. 



I gratefully acknowledge the courtesies extended by Professors W. R. 

 Dudley, Charles E. Bessey, and to my classmate and companion on 

 many a " botanical tramp," Prof. William Trelease, as well as others whose 

 names I have not space to mention, but towards whom the same grati- 

 tude is felt. To Rev. J. Hermann Wibbe, Prof. Leo Lesquereux and 

 Mrs. Elizabeth G. Britton, for aid in determining respectively the Ger- 

 man, French and Spanish synonyms, I am heartily grateful. Last, but 

 bv no means least, I have to acknowledge the very material aid received 

 first from my father's counsel in planning the work, and then from 

 others as near and dear, in its prosecution, proof-reading, etc. 



To those not familiar with the scientific classification of natural 

 objects, a few words must be said regarding that and the application of 

 descriptions. A number of species, having certain characters in com- 

 mon, are gathered together into a group, called a genus (pi. genera), and 

 a number of these in turn, upon the strength of common characters, 

 into a higher group called an order, and still higher are various other 

 groupings, ranked by authors under various names. The order, then, 

 is made up of genera and the genus of species, and since it is custo- 

 mary in technical descriptions to define these groups, so I have done 



