PREFACE +] 
The size of the illustration as compared with the specimen of 
plant is indicated by a fraction near it; + indicates that the 
drawing is one fourth as long as the original, t that it is nat- 
ural size, etc. The notching of the margin is reduced to the 
same extent; so a margin which in the engraving looks about 
entire, might in the leaf be quite distinctly serrate. The only 
cases in which the scale is not given are in the cross-sections 
of the leaves among the figures of coniferous plants. These 
are uniformly three times the natural size, except the section 
of Araucaria imbricata, which is not increased in scale. 
The author has drawn from every available source of infor- 
mation, and in the description of many of the species no attempt 
whatever has been made to change the excellent wording of 
such authors as Gray, Loudon, ete. 
The ground covered by the book is that of the wild and cul- 
tivated trees found east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of 
the southern boundary of Virginia and Missouri. It contains 
not only the native species, but all those that are successfully 
cultivated in the whole region; thus including all the species 
of Ontario, Quebec, etc., on the north, and many species, both 
wild and cultivated, of the Southern States and the Pacific 
coast. In fact, the work will be found to contain so large a 
proportion of the trees of the Southern States as to make it 
very useful in the schools of that section. 
Many shrubby plants are introduced; some because they oc- 
casionally grow quite tree-like, others because they can readily 
be trimmed into tree-forms, others because they grow very tall, 
and still others because they are trees in the Southern States. 
In nomenclature a conservative course has been adopted. 
The most extensively used text-book on the subject of Botany, 
“ Gray’s Manual,” has recently been rewritten. That work in- 
cludes every species, native and naturalized, of the region 
covered by this book, and the names as given in that edition 
have been used in all cases. 
