28 PREFACE. 



WiLSOX are acknowledged for valuable contributions 

 to the knowledge of plants around Newbern. 



In 1833, I published, in the " Boston Journal of 

 Natural History," an Enumeration of the Plants 

 growing around Wilmington, the fruit of diligent 

 examination made during a residence there of two 

 years and a half. Occasional visits since made have 

 increased the number of species known in that most 

 interesting locality, the Flowering Plants and Ferns 

 of which exceed one thousand. 



Dr. James F. McRee, of Wilmington, has devoted 

 much time to a study of the Plants of that neighbor- 

 hood, and the completeness of the above Enumeration 

 is not a little due to his observation and assistance. 



The late Rev. Dr. L. D. von Schweinitz, of Sa- 

 lem, has contributed very largely to a knowledge of 

 the Botany of this State, particularly in its lower 

 orders, or those having no proper flowers, as Mosses, 

 Fungi, &c. In these departments he was the most 

 expert and accomplished Botanist that our country 

 has produced. In 1821 he printed at Raleigh a small 

 tract of twenty-seven pages upon the Hepatic Mosses 

 or Livenvorts, most of which he had observed near 

 Salem. In 1820 he published in a scientific journal 

 at Leipsic a paper upon the Fungi of North Carolina, 

 containing descriptions of a large number of species 

 previously unknown, some of which are illustrated 

 by very good figures. A similar paper upon the 

 Fungi of the United States, printed in 1831 in the 

 Journal of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 



