iv. PREFACE. 



could be gathered from Nature's treasures. Nor have they been 

 selected for their superior beauty, since many equally worthy of note 

 have been necessarily excluded in order to bring the work within its 

 prescribed limits. Should its success prove that an American public 

 can be interested in a purely American subject, other volumes may 

 succeed it, which will give completeness to the design. 



The botanical and local descriptions accompanying the plates, have 

 been furnished by the artist, Mr. E. Whitefield. The verses, begin- 

 ning " She sleeps," inserted in " Love beyond the Grave," were 

 presented for publication by a friend. With these exceptions, the 

 author is alone responsible for every thing in the volume which has 

 not the name of its writer affixed. 



To the friends who have assisted her in this undertaking, she 

 would fain offer her heart-warm thanks. Of the high value of their 

 aid, every intelligent reader can judge, but of the spontaneous kind- 

 ness with which that aid was afforded, this is not the place to speak, 

 since it would be invading the rights and encroaching upon the privi- 

 leges of that friendship which claims to belong to social, even more 

 than to literary life. 



It is only necessary to add that every thing contained in the volume 

 was written expressly for it, with the exception of a few short poems, 

 selected from the author's early writings, which after appearing under 

 other signatures, are now for the first time claimed. 



Brooklyn, September 15, 1844. 



