One who is upon the gray ocean at this season of the year when, in 

 the woods and at the roadsides in the State of New York, the wild flowers 

 are beginning to redeem their promises of life, appreciates as never before 

 how much these quiet, persistent pioneers of the fields contribute in scent, 

 color and form to the making of that which is summed up in the name 

 New York; even as the heather to the making of that country whose head- 

 lands are now dimly emerging from the level sea. The sight of a spray of 

 these native flowers, such as many a page in this book carries, would be 

 as a twig borne back in ancient times to the ark — a sign that, though the 

 flood of war has overwhelmed many valleys, the elemental processes of life 

 go forward undisturbed in the " Empire State." Whatever the economic 

 value or imputed harm of these aborigines, first settlers, later immigrants 

 and vagrants which together constitute the Flora of the State, it is desirable 

 from every point of view, since they are our near, most welcome but some- 

 times intrusive neighbors, that we should know their faces, their habits and 

 their capacities for good or warning of ill. It is a great realm of life within 

 the State of which the State as a whole should acknowledge the possession. 



I have unusual satisfaction in finding it my official opportunity to say 

 an introductory word to this notable and distinguished work, because it is 

 the record of a possession which the Director of the State Museum, Dr John 

 M. Clarke, has enabled the State to make. It has a great practical value, 

 but it has another value in making perennial and keeping in perpetual 

 domestic bloom, in home and schoolhouse and library, flowers that blossom 

 but a few days or weeks in the wild state in which they have been so skil- 

 fully and sympathetically discovered by Doctor House. I am proud that 

 the State has made possible such a publication and that The University 

 of the State of New York has been able to execute the commission with 

 such success. 



On the Atlantic Ocean President of the University 



May iqi8 7 



