A SUMMARY OF THE REVISED EDITION. 



THE very extensive revision of the Fieldbook of Amer- 

 ican Wild Flowers is primarily due to the many com- 

 munications which I have received from the East and 

 from the West containing inquiries about various more or 

 less common species of plants, the description or illustra- 

 tion of which did not appear in the book. Such inquiries 

 were the indubitable evidences of the fact that a popular 

 work on botany must thoroughly cover the ground or 

 else imperfectly fulfil the purpose for which it is intended. 

 The Drawings ^ ne ^ ^ e mos t important points in a 

 and Additional book of this kind is its complete illustra- 

 Descriptions tion ; that, more than anything else, should 

 enable the layman to identify some unknown species 

 without a protracted search through the text. As a 

 consequence this edition is fully illustrated with drawings 

 direct from nature, about three hundred of which are 

 new. It also includes the descriptions of over one hun- 

 dred added species, which in many instances complete 

 the genus for instance, Sparganium, Sagittaria, Xyris, 

 Tradescantia, Lilium, Oxalis, Geranium, etc. Of course 

 this statement applies to the genera included within the 

 geographical limitation of the book, drawn at the 100th 

 meridian west from Greenwich. Again, it is not possi- 

 ble, within the narrow limits of a pocket volume to 

 include all the flowering plants and shrubs of the eastern 

 half of the United States; the addition of a second volume 

 must accomplish that. Also the expression * ' complete 

 illustration " does not necessarily mean the drawing of 

 every individual species described. I cannot show by a 

 pen-and-ink sketch the diagnostic differences which exist 

 in, say, the matter of one hundred or so species. These 

 are usually variations of color or botanical detail for 

 which a few words will suffice. In a word, the botanist 

 must count the stamens, but the artist will draw only 



