PREFACE. 
The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota is 
established by virtue of an act of the state legislature, ap- 
proved March 1, 1872. This act is entitled ‘‘An Act to provide 
for a Geological and Natural History Survey of the State, and to 
entrust the same to the University of Minnesota.” Under the 
law, therefore, organising the survey, the Regents of the Uui- 
versity became its directors and have at different times ap- 
pointed officers to prosecute the different lines of scientific 
work. The order of carrying on the work is prescribed in the 
law establishing it. In accordance with such prescription the. 
geological work has been in progress for twenty years, the 
zodlogical work for four years, the botanical for two years, and 
the topographical for one year. Originally the separation of 
these four lines of work was not formally insisted upon by the 
Board of Regents and certain botanical and zodlogical brochures 
have up to this time appeared from the office of the State 
Geologist. More recently, however, contingencies arose that 
induced the Board of Regents so to classify the work of the 
survey that each department should be under the charge of a 
specialist who might be expected to labor toward the ends 
defined in the organic law, with greater directness than under 
the unperfected arrangement. The accompanying work, then, 
is a report of the botanical division of the survey, and the first 
volume of the botanical series. It is transmitted in the cus- 
tomary manner. 
It is necessary to add in this place a word to what is more 
fully discussed in that portion of the introductory chapter 
which relates to nomenclature. The action of the Botanical 
Club of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, at the meeting in Rochester, New York, during the 
month of August, 1892, is a very grateful one to all who have 
wished for some radical reform in our laws and customs of 
botanical nomenclature, The rules of the Paris Congress have 
