CATALOGUE OF PLANTS. 31 



specimens, and to serve as a voucher for the correctness of the 

 work. Lists of plants made from published statements alone are 

 from their very nature no addition to knowledge, and just in propor- 

 tion to the amount of such material admitted is their value decreased. 

 The present work is based, so far as the flowering-plants, ferns and 

 fern-allies are concerned, on specimens actually seen and examined 

 by myself, and contained either in the State Herbarium above alluded 

 to or in other collections of repute. The lists of lower plants have 

 been supplied by specialists of high reputation and authority. The 

 distribution of the species and varieties has necessarily been partly 

 made up from correspondence and citation of published lists, but all 

 such citations have been excluded if open to reasonable doubt. A few 

 have been collected but once, and these many years ago ; of all but 

 these I have been enabled, through the courtesy of numerous valued 

 correspondents, to secure specimens for the State collection, which 

 contains over 5,000 mounted sheets, bearing 10,000 or 12,000 

 specimens. 



ARRANGEMENT AND NOMENCLATURE. 



In the orders and genera of flowering-plants I have followed the 

 sequence adopted by Bentham and Hooker in their " Genera Plan- 

 tar um," with the exception that the class GymnospermaB has been 

 moved into its more natural position, at the extreme end of the flow- 

 ering-plant series, and immediately before the fern-allies, with which 

 it has more affinity than with the willows and poplars, next to which 

 it has generally been placed. The classes and orders of the lower 

 sub-kingdoms have been grouped mainly as in recent treatises on their 

 several divisions, but not without certain modifications. The species 

 have been arranged according to their botanical alliances, following 

 recent authors. 



The names adopted for the members of the first two sub-kingdoms 

 are for the most part those of the " Preliminary Catalogue of Antho- 

 phyta and Pteridophyta reported as growing within one hundred 

 miles of New York City," issued by the Torrey Botanical Club 

 during the past year. Wherever these differ from those used in the 

 several manuals and class-books of botany, the latter are given as 

 synonyms in italics. The names adopted are based strictly on the 

 principle of priority of publication, the oldest specific or varietal 

 name available being retained in whatever genus the plant is -located, 



