Introbuction. 



common vocabulary, fhe destructive element which, at present, occupies 

 a painfully large place in the study of all popular science, might be 

 confined to the needs of the higher student, and no longer pursued by 

 children, or the merely curious observers of our common forms of life. 

 The efEort to verify what has already been established, which, in some 

 intellectually alert localities, threatens the more delicate of our annuals 

 and biennials with extermination, might be avoided, if we were able to 

 recognize the commoner sorts of plants by their general character, their 

 gesture, color, and habits, leaving scientific analysis for serious study. 



The present collection of flowers common to the North-eastern 

 United States, which was started as a personal pastime, has taken its 

 present shape under the belief that it were well to make a beginning 

 towards a floral portrait-gallery ; it is from this point of view, rather 

 than fi'om the purely botanical, that the drawings have been made and 

 the descriptions written. Days have been pleasantly spent in searching 

 for a specimen which would show most typically the particular trick of 

 growth, the characteristic gesture which individualized it from all other 

 plants ; often a flower has been drawn and described as it grew, sur- 

 prised in its familiar haunt. Effort has been made to gather withiu 

 the prescribed limits as great a diversity of growths, and as many 

 variations of types in each family, as was feasible. Because of the 

 desire to localize the collection, somewhat, the flowers of the sea-board 

 have been excluded. A few shrubs, and even one small tree, the 

 Witch Hazel, have been included, because their flowers or fruit form 

 such essential features in the floral calendar, or possess so strong a hold 

 upon the wayfarers' affections, that their presence has seemed inevitable. 

 In the case of two vines, the Carrion Flower and the Virginia Creeper, 

 the drawings were made from the fruit (companioned by the figure of 



