Introduction. v-ji 



The present interest in botany and horticulture owep 

 much of its origin to the new mode of presenting botanical 

 science by copious illustration, as well as to the simplifying 

 of dry details, and thus affording knowledge, stripped of 

 much of its former unattractive guise. 



In this new education a great work is being accomplished, 

 and to no one is more credit due than to the learned pro- 

 fessor of botany in Harvard University, Dr. Asa Gray, who 

 by a series of text-books simple and intelligible in language, 

 and profuse in illustration, has done quite as much to pop- 

 ularize botanical science as he has, by his more elaborate 

 and learned writing, laid the scientific world under lasting 

 obligation. 



But, with all that has been done, there is a great want 

 of books upon botanical subjects which are adapted to the 

 use of the masses, and often the student and the culturist 

 find themselves at a loss whence to seek information. 



The volume now presented to the public is a contribution 

 to this new method of presenting botanical facts, and is one 

 of which a need has long been felt ; for, in spite of the glo- 

 ries of the green-house, it is to hardy trees, shrubs, and 

 herbaceous plants that the attention of the multitude is 

 directed, and it is upon these subjects that information is 

 required. It is a happy combination of the scientific and 

 the cultural, affording a ready reference to every plant 

 which is commonly met with in cultivation. 



While sufficiently scientific to suit the requirements of 

 the botanist, it is not such a mass of technical terms as to 

 confuse the culturist; and' any person with a moderate 

 knowledge of the common terms of botany can read it un- 

 derstandingly, and with profit. The arrangement according 



