It is now more than forty years since the publication of Mr. 

 Ohiey's Catalogue of Khode Island Plants,* which was the first 

 enumeration, other than the partial lists occasionally made by 

 visiting botanists, ever made of our plants. Since that time, and 

 more especially during the last decade, the study of Botany has 

 received increased attention, and is regularly taught in the 

 schools, generally, however, in a merely perfunctory and necessa- 

 rily superficial manner, but any attention given to the study is 

 an advance upon the previous total neglect of the science. The 

 Franklin Society has continued its discussions and lectures upon 

 botanical subjects, and an interest has been maintained and fos- 

 tered, which, it is pleasant to note, is more general at the present 

 than at any previous time; withal, Mr. Olney's genei'ous bequest 

 to Brown University, and the endowment of a jjrofessorship of 

 Botany under his will, has made the possibility of gaining a 

 knowledge of botanical science so comparatively easy, that it is 

 but reasonable to expect that this branch of Biology is to receive, 

 at least in part, that attention which it deserves. 



When the first enumeration was made, many problems remained 

 unsolved which are to-day of easy explanation; text books to 

 which recourse might be had for careful generalizations from 



* The fint part of this Catalogue was the conjoined toork oj the Committee of 

 the Providence Franklin Society, Stephen T. Olney, George Hunt, George Thur- 

 her and Henry B. Metcalf; the supplementary additions were made by Mr. 

 Olney. 



