INTRODUCTION 
thirst for a more intimate knowledge of them. They became 
like dear friends, soothing and cheering, by their sweet 
unconscious influence, hours of loneliness and hours of 
sorrow and suffering. 
Having never made botany a study, and having no one 
to guide and assist me, it was acquiring knowledge under 
difficulties, by observation only; but the eye and the ear 
are good teachers, and memory is a great storehouse, in 
which are laid up things new and old which may be drawn 
out for use in after years. It is a book the leaves of which 
can be turned over and read from childhood to old age 
without weariness. 
Having experienced the need of some familiar work 
giving the information respecting the names and habits 
and uses of the native plants, I early conceived the idea of 
turning the little knowledge which I gleaned from time to 
time to supplying a book which I had felt the great want 
of myself; but I hesitated to enter the field when all I 
had gathered had been from merely studying the subject 
without any regular systematic knowledge of botany. The 
only book that I had access to was an old edition of 
“North American Flora,” by that industrious and in- 
teresting botanist, Frederick Pursh. This work was lent 
to me by a friend, the only person I knew who had paid 
any attention to botany as a study, and to whom I was 
deeply indebted for many hints and for the cheering in- 
terest that she always took in my writings, herself possess- 
ing the advantages of a highly cultivated mind, educated 
and trained in the society of persons of scientific and 
literary notoriety in the Old Country. Mrs. Stewart was 
a member of the celebrated Edgeworth family. Pursh’s 
“Flora,” unfortunately for me, was written chiefly in 
xv 
