INTRODUCTION. 



THE present work is the first complete Illustrated Flora published in this countr 

 aim is to illustrate and describe every species, from the Ferns ujm.u cd as 



distinct by botanists and growing wild within the area adopted, and to complete the 

 work within such moderate limits of size and cost as shall make it accessible to the public 

 generally, so that it may serve as an independent handbook of our Northern Flora and as m 

 work of general reference, or as an adjunct and supplement to the manuals of systematic 

 botany in current use. 



To all botanical students, a complete illustrated manual is of the greatest service; always 

 useful, often indispensable. The doubts and difficulties that are apt to attend the best writ- 

 ten descriptions will often be instantly solved by figures addressed to the eye. 

 stimulus, moreover, to observation and study, is a clear and intelligible guide; and 

 the aids to botanical enquiry, a complete illustrated handbook is one of the chief. Thou- 

 sands of the lovers of plants, on the other hand, who are not botanists and are not familiar 

 with botanical terms or the methods of botanical analysis, will find in the illustrations of a 

 complete work the readiest means of comparison and identification of the plants that grow 

 around them; and through the accompanying descriptions they will at the same time .-. 

 a. familiarity with botanical language. By these facilities, not only will the study of our na- 

 tive plants be stimulated and widened among all classes, but the enjoyment, the knowledge 

 and the scientific progress derivable from these studies will be proportionately increased. 



Though most European countries have complete illustrations of the flora of their own 

 territory, no similar work has hitherto been attempted here. < Hir illustrated works, some of 

 them of great value, have been either sumptuous and costly monographs, accessible to com. 

 paratively few, or confined to special groups of plants, or have been works of a minor and 

 miscellaneous character, embracing at most but a few hundred selected species, and from in- 

 completeness, therefore, unsuited for general reference. Scarcely one-quarter of the species 

 illustrated in the present work have ever been figured before. That no such general work 

 has been previously attempted is to be ascribed partly, perhaps, to the imperfect exploration 

 of our territory, and the insufficiency of the collections to enable such a work to be made 

 approximately complete; partly to the great number of species required to be figured and 

 the consequent difficulty and cost of the undertaking, and partly to the lack of any apparent 

 demand for such a work sufficient to warrant the expense of the enterprise. 



The increased accumulations of material in our largest herbaria, the result of imilv 

 explorations, and the widely extended interest in the study of our nat seem now 



to justify the endeavor to supply a complete illustrated work adapted to general use. 



The enterprise, projected by Judge Brown, and maintained and sup* 

 throughout, has been diligently prosecuted for the past six years. Its ext been 



mainly the work of Dr. Britton. The text, founded upon a careful examin - Bg 



herbarium specimens, has been chiefly prepared by him, with the I 

 specialists in a few groups who have contributed the descriptions for certain fan 

 stated in the footnote's. The figures also have been drawn by artists under his immi 

 supervision; except those of most of the grasses, drawn by Mr. Holm, under the e 

 Scribner; while the work in all its parts has been carefully revised by both auth. 

 keys to the genera and species, based upon a few distinctive characters, will, it 

 greatly facilitate the determinations. 



In preparing a new work of this character, the authors have felt that there si 

 hesitation in adopting the matured results of the botanical 

 here and in Europe, so as to bring the work fully abreast of the knowledge 

 conceptions of the time, and make h answer present nee<K Alth- 

 in systematic order, in nomenclature, and in the diviin Vf families aid gem 



