Introduction. 



that every student cannot become a Linnaeus or a Lindley, 

 would be as fallacious as to contend that no one should study 

 •music because he could not reach the fame of a Mozart or a 

 Haydn. Indeed, a contrary argument, without a paradox 

 either, might be drawn from these very circumstances. 



But we take it for granted that our readers need no such 

 reasoning to induce them to follow us when, in ensuing parts 

 of this work, we attempt to lead them, by a somewhat more 

 thorough and regular course than has been before pursued, 

 to some acquaintance with the great modern system of Bot- 

 any, as improved and extended by Lindley and others, and 

 which seems to have given to the science a stability and 

 precision which it has been comparatively late in acquiring. 

 It will, of course, be quite impossible, in such a periodical, to 

 enter minutely or largely into the details of this subject. All 

 we shall aim at will be, to give the reader as competent a 

 knowledge of first principles, as will render him capable of study- 

 ing with pleasure and profit the learned and systematic works of 

 more able and distinguished authors. It will be our purpose to 

 devote a portion of each number, during the ensuing year, to a 

 series of articles of this nature ; in which we shall, so far as 

 possible, avoid technical difficulties, and which, taken collec- 

 tively, at the end of the year, we hope to render a nearly com- 

 plete introduction to the Natural System of Botany, as expounded 

 by its great advocate and teacher, Professor Lindley. For this 

 object we shall make a free, but we hope a judicious use of 

 the works of the celebrated Professor, as well as those of other 

 standard writers. We also expect the occasional aid of 

 one of the most accomplished and distinguished of Ameri- 

 can botanists, whose labors in the fields of our native Flora 

 deserve the gratitude of every lover of science. 



Another portion of the work will be occupied exclusively by 



the senior editor, with a series of notices on the subject of Fos- 

 sil Botany : a branch of the science hitherto but little appre- 

 ciated or understood in this country ; but which, being the 



