viii PREFACE. 



Modesty, we learn from the flowers, is one of the winsome 

 virtues. It is therefore said with much modesty that what has 

 been formerly lacking to make these books thoroughly useful 

 and practicable to the student is supplied in the present volume. 

 It is COLOUR. To the development of science we owe the 

 existence of the sixty-four coloured plates that are here repro- 

 duced. They and the pen-and-ink sketches are from original 

 studies from nature and show us many of our familiar as well 

 as rare wild flowers. In the selection of them the range has 

 not been limited ; simply from America's great wealth of bloom 

 those have been chosen that have some especial claim on our 

 attention. This work has been greatly facilitated by the most 

 kind and generous aid of Dr. Britton. 



Mrs. Rowan received invaluable assistance from Mr. Beadle, 

 the well-known botanist of Biltmore ; and while in Asheville 

 was enabled, through his courtesy and that of his colleagues, to 

 get many rare specimens of native plants from the mountains 

 of North Carolina. 



Besides accuracy, Mrs. Rowan has a particularly happy 

 faculty of transmitting to paper the atmosphere of the plants, 

 so that in looking at them we almost feel their texture and 

 sense a whiff of the salt marsh in which they grew, or the cool, 

 spicy odour of the pine thickets. How differently these 

 coloured plates impress us from those that gave dreary pleasure 

 to our ancestors, when a patch of colour and a bit of green 

 that was taken on faith as the accompanying leaves caused 

 them to exclaim mechanically, " It is a flower," 



That the book introduces many new friends among the wild 

 flowers and that it adds colour constitutes its claim upon the 

 reader. 



About the flowers grave lessons cling, 

 Let us softly steal like the tread of spring 

 And learn of them. 



