PREFACE. 
Tus Key is preliminary to a West Coast Botany for beginners, which will probably 
be completed within three years. The object in publishing this skeleton in advance is 
twofold: it will be serviceable in connection with the Popular California Flora, while its 
use. will disclose mistakes and weak places which can be corrected and strengthened for 
the betterment of the final work. 
The material has mostly been drawn from Gray’s Synoptical Flora of North America 
and the California Botany. Free use has also been made of Gray’s and Watson’s Contri- 
butions to American Botany; Greene’s monographs in the Bulletin of the California 
Academy of Sciences, and the contributions of these and other authors in Coulter’s 
Botanical Gazette and the Bulletin of-the Torrey Club, 
The intention has been to describe all polypetalous and gamopetalous plants growing 
{n the region indicated on the title page, except those belonging to the orders Umbellifera 
and Composit; also all the species in the endogenous orders Alismacex, Orchidaces, 
Iridacew and Liliavew, The scope of the West Coast Botany will be a little broader, 
including some of the Apetalz and possibly a tribe of the Compositaz. The introductory 
lessons and glossaries will be more ample than those of the California Flora. 
I shall be very thankful for notes of omissions, corrections, criticisms and sug- 
gestions, 
VOLNEY RATTAN. 
Sam Francisco, Jan. 22, 1887. 
