22 



graphical limits. That this aim is very rarely attained renders it 

 none the less the chief raison d'etre of every botanical manual. 

 There is a practical problem involved here, as every author 

 comes to realize. No publisher is likely to undertake the pro- 

 duction of a work of this kind, unless he can be assured that it 

 will sell. His chief customers will necessarily be the schools and 

 colleges of the district covered. If it becomes evident that the 

 book does not adequately serve the purpose above indicated, its 

 chances of securing the indorsement of these institutions will not 

 be ver3^ great. Our pupils in the secondary schools are not in- 

 terested in taxonomic discussions; they want to be able to name 

 the plants which they encounter in their excursions; and the 

 commonest of these, at least here in Western Oregon, are just as 

 likely to be introduced as indigenous. These foreign species can 

 of course be relegated to an appendix, as has been done by Coulter 

 and Rose in their Monograph of the North American Umbellif- 

 erae; but if they are included at all, it is much more convenient 

 for the student to insert them in the body of the work. 



The authors of the Flora of the Northwest Coast were of course 

 at liberty to omit all introduced species; but since it is plain that 

 they have included some, we are left to conjecture on what grounds 

 others were excluded. For example, I have never seen but one 

 specimen of Ulex europaeus growing wild about Salem; yet this 

 species is included, while the related Cytisus scoparius, which 

 sets our hills and roadsides ablaze in early spring, and is fast 

 becoming a formidable menace to the farmer, finds no mention. 

 Why should Stellaria media be included, and Bellis perennis be 

 omitted, when the two are found everywhere growing together, 

 and the latter is so abundant as to be in nine cases out of ten the 

 first plant in flower encountered by the student? Foeniculum 

 vulgare is a far more abundant and characteristic plant about 

 Salem than Hesperis matronalis; yet the latter finds a place while 

 the former does not appear. Silyhum marianum and Camelina 

 microcarpa I have never seen in Oregon except as ballast-plan ts> 

 while Melissa officinalis and Tanacetum vulgare are everywhere 

 common. The list could be indefinitely extended. When the 

 most abundant and familiar of our local species find no place in a 



