PREFACE. 17 



ACCENTUATION OF NAMES. As a guide to correct pronunciation 

 of botanical names (in which great carelessness prevails), I have 

 marked the accented syllable ; and have also (following Loudon's 

 convenient mode) indicated what is called the long sound of the 

 vowel by the grave (") and the short sound by the acute (') accent- 

 mark. 



INDICATION OF PROMINENT CHARACTERS is made by the use 

 of Italic type, for the leading distinctions of the orders, and for those 

 points in the specific descriptions by which two or more species of 

 the same division may be most readily or surely discriminated, 

 the latter a plan adopted from Koch's Flora Germanica. 



The ready discrimination of the genera is provided for by a 

 Synopsis, in small type, of the leading characters of all the genera, 

 when more than two, under each order. In this the genera are an- 

 alytically disposed under their proper sub-orders, tribes, or other such 

 natural groups, of whatever rank, properly characterized ; and then, 

 to save room, all these subordinal or tribal names and characters 

 are left out of the body of the order, the genera following each other 

 without a break. 



Whenever a genus comprises several species, pains have been 

 taken to render important differences conspicuous, and to abridge the 

 labor of analysis, by proper grouping, and when needed by a series 

 of rightly subordinated divisions and subdivisions. Divisions of the 

 highest rank, or Subgenera, have the sectional mark () followed by 

 the subgeneric name.* Those less important are indicated by the , 

 without a name ; subsections or divisions of lower grade are marked 

 by stars ( * ) ; their divisions, if any, by the *- , and theirs again 

 by the -H- , &c. 



Having in view the needs of students rather than of learned bot- 

 anists, I have throughout endeavored to smooth the beginner's way 

 by discarding many an unnecessary technical word or phrase, and 



* As 1. ATRAGENE, under Clematis, p. 35, and 1. PULSATILLA, 

 under Anemone, p. 36. 



b 



