Vill PREFACE. 
Modesty, we learn from the flowers, is one of the winsome 
virtues, . It is therefore said with much modesty that what has 
been formerly lacking to make these books thoroughly useful 
and practicable to the student is supplied in the present volume. 
It is CoLour. To the development of science we owe the 
existence of the sixty-four coloured plates that are here repro- 
duced. They and the pen-and-ink sketches are from original 
studies from nature and show us many of our familiar as well 
as rare wild flowers. In the selection of them the range has 
not been limited ; simply from America’s great wealth of bloom 
those have been chosen that have some especial claim on our 
attention. This work has been greatly facilitated by the most 
kind and generous aid of Dr. Britton. 
Mrs. Rowan received invaluable assistance from Mr. Beadle, 
the well-known botanist of Baltimore ; and while in Asheville 
was enabled, through his courtesy and that of his colleagues, to 
get many rare specimens of native plants from the mountains 
of North Carolina. 
Besides accuracy, Mrs. Rowan has a particularly happy 
faculty of transmitting to paper the atmosphere of the plants, 
so that in looking at them we almost feel their texture and 
sense a whiff of the salt marsh in which they grew, or the cool, 
spicy odour of the pine thickets. How differently these 
coloured plates impress us from those that gave dreary pleasure 
to our ancestors, when a patch of colour and a bit of green 
that was taken on faith as the accompanying leaves caused 
them to exclaim mechanically, “ It is a-flower.” 
That the book introduces many new friends among the wild 
flowers and that it adds colour constitutes its claim upon the 
reader. 
About the flowers grave lessons cling, 
Let us softly steal like the tread of spring 
And learn of them, 

