INTRODUCTION. 



Where are fairer flowers than those that deck the fields and forests ot 

 the south ? From tide-water to peaks where trees have never dared to 

 cUmb— from pahiis and hanging moss to painted-cup and balsams — and all 

 between intensely interesting and bewildering ! But now a guide appears to 

 lead the novice to a knowledge of southern trees and flowers, one freed as 

 much as can be from the brogue of technicality, that barrier between so 

 many and the society of the flowers that beckon with their glances. None 

 is more needed than a popular botany of the region, visited and viewed as it 

 is by countless persons who seek the pines, the mountains or the coast, and 

 to most of whom the flora is but a maze of forms and colours. To such, 

 then, this volume appeals, and if by its guidance its readers are brought in 

 closer touch with nature, or are led to see the greater wealth of floral beauty 

 by the prismatic influence of stronger light, its mission will be of inestima- 

 ble good. 



The field of southern botany is but partially explored. New characters 

 are being introduced, new histories written concerning the famous and ob- 

 scure. Never has there been greater activity in the science, and were not 

 the field so large the efforts of its devotees might quickly steal the secrets 

 which hide from all but time and toil. What subject offers better problems 

 or invites wMth better grace ? The geography of plants which we know, the 

 altitudinal distribution, adaptation or sensibility of this one or that, are but 

 suggestive of the almost boundless phases that await, like the intricacies of 

 chess, the progress of the players. 



Through the pages which follow are descriptions and artistic reproductions 

 of many trees and flowers that glisten, as it were, with white sands or moun- 

 tain showers, or else we feel the shade of cool retreats, so faithfully has na- 

 ture been consulted. The arrangement of plant families in close conform- 

 ity to the system of classification destined to pervade the botanies of both 

 popular and technical import is a commendable feature which, in connection 

 with an attempt to adopt the oldest names, will quickly aid to pave the way 

 to a knowledge of the southern flora in harmony with the progress of the 

 times. 



Biltmore Herbarium, Biltmore, N. C, July i6th, 1901. C. D. Beadle. 



