PREFACE 



This book is the outcome of a lifelong search for a volume 

 with which one might make a little journey into the garden, and 

 become acquainted with the dwellers therein; their native land, 

 their life history, their structural affliations. 



Among the many species of a genus it has often been necessary 

 to select but one for description. As a rule the choice has been 

 either the typical form, or the one longest in cultivation, or the 

 greatest favorite. 



While it has been the aim to make the book a fairly complete 

 study of all the annual and perennial flowering herbs commonly 

 found in a hardy garden, it is by no means intended to be a cata- 

 logue. 



The half-tones are from photographs, of which the larger num- 

 ber were made by Mr. Nathan R. Graves, of Rochester, New York. 



The outline drawings, with the exception of the few that are 

 marked, are the work of Miss Mary Keflfer, of Lake Erie College, 

 Painesville, Ohio. The following list names the books which 

 have been especially helpful in the preparation of this volume : 



"Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," L. H. Bailey; "Favor- 

 ite Flowers of Garden and Greenhouse," Edward Step, F.L.S., 

 and William Watson, F.R.H.S.; "The Flowering Plants of Great 

 Britain," Anne Pratt; "Plantes Utiliores, or Illustrations of 

 Useful Plants Employed in the Arts and Medicine," M. A. Bur- 

 nett; "Manual of the Flora of the United States," M. L. Brit- 

 ton; Gray's "New Manual of Botany," seventh edition; Gray's 

 "Field, Forest, and Garden Botany," revised edition. 



