CATALOGUE OF PLANTS. 31 
specimens, and to serve as a voucher for the correctness of the 
work. Lists of plants made from published statements alone are 
from their very nature no addition to knowledge, and just in propor- 
tion to the amount of such material admitted is their value decreased. 
The present work is based, so far as the flowering-plants, ferns and 
fern-allies are concerned, on specimens actually seen and examined 
by myself, and contained either in the State Herbarium above alluded 
to or in other collections of repute. The lists of lower plants have 
been supplied by specialists of high reputation and authority. The 
distribution of the species and varieties has necessarily been partly 
made up from correspondence and citation of published lists, but all 
such citations have been excluded if open to reasonable doubt. A few 
have been collected but once, and these many years ago; of all but 
these I have been enabled, through the courtesy of numerous valued 
correspondents, to secure specimens for the State collection, which 
contains over 5,000 mounted sheets, bearing 10,000 or 12,000 
specimens. 
ARRANGEMENT AND NOMENCLATURE. 
In the orders and genera of flowering-plants I have followed the 
sequence adopted by Bentham and Hooker in their “Genera Plan- 
tarum,” with the exception that the class Gymnosperme has been 
moved into its more natural position, at the extreme end of the flow- 
ering-plant series, and immediately before the fern-allies, with which 
it has more affinity than with the willows and poplars, next to which 
it has generally been placed. “The classes and orders of the lower 
sub-kingdoms have been grouped mainly as in recent treatises on their 
several divisions, but not without certain modifications. The species 
have been arranged according to their botanical alliances, following 
recent authors. 
The names adopted for the members of the first two sub-kingdoms 
are for the most part those of the “ Preliminary Catalogue of Antho- 
phyta and Pteridophyta reported as growing within one hundred 
miles of New York City,” issued by the Torrey Botanical Club 
during the past year. Wherever these differ from those used in the 
several manuals and class-books of botany, the latter are given as 
synonyms in italics. The names adopted are based strictly on the 
principle of priority of publication, the oldest specific or varietal 
name available being retained in whatever genus the plant is located, 
