INTRODUCTION 



" There is religion in a flower ; 

 Its still, small voice is as the voice of conscience; 

 Mountains and oceans, planets, suns and systems 

 Bear not the impress of Almighty power 

 In characters more legible than those 

 Which He hath written on the tiniest flower 

 Whose light bell bends beneath the dewdrop's weight.'* 



I began, once upon a time, to gather some bio- 

 graphical data relative to the floral medical god- 

 fathers of such well-known plants as the Gar- 

 denia, Wistaria and Claytonia, and this led me 

 holidaying further into the botanical field than I 

 had ever intended to wander. My little flower- 

 bed soon grew into a fair garden of no small size, 

 for there sprang up on all sides the names of many 

 other botanists and flowers clamoring for recog- 

 nition, until at last my plots and alleys had de- 

 veloped into a stately botanic garden. As I ad- 

 vanced I found my heroes scattered through the 

 centuries, so I proceeded to arrange them in sim- 

 ple chronological sequence. It seemed well, too, 

 to trace the wonderful work of our American pio- 

 neer botanists at a time when journeying was 

 truly laborious and often dangerous, and good 

 text-books comparatively scarce. Now, on the 

 completion of my task, I find in my garden such 



