FOREWORD 17 



gives you to other and wiser books. I only 

 stand just within the Gate called Beautiful 

 beckoning you to enter the Temple; teaching 

 you how to watch and how best to learn, and 

 giving to each the guides who shall unfold the 

 greater mysteries beyond. 



There are, too, many students, both ama- 

 teurs and more experienced botanists, who 

 wish to do something beyond learning the 

 names and ways of plants. They want some 

 beautiful memento of their spring and summer 

 rambles and of the differing floras of their hol- 

 iday haunts. They would like to preserve 

 some of the plants they find. I hope this book 

 will help all such students to do this success- 

 fully. 



Some of you may chance to be most experi- 

 enced and advanced naturalists ; but in spite of 

 your knowledge of plant-life you are disap- 

 pointed with the result of drying and pressing 

 your flowers, and you are conscious that your 

 herbarium is anything but beautiful. If so, 

 and if it also chances that you have a humble 

 and teachable spirit, there is no reason why 

 you should not soon turn these mournful col- 



