Vill PREFACE. 
and who gives to a work great enough to command a life, the 
scanty hours of recreation of his summer holidays. 
A Report upon the Botany of the State is certainly very 
mcompleie, without even an enumeration of the Alge, the 
Mosses, the Lichens, and the Fungi; and, with a hope to pre- 
vent this omission, I furnished myself, at the commencement of 
this Survey, with several somewhat expensive works upon these 
departments of botany. But I am obliged to confess, that I have 
been able to do very little in regard to them. Since the com- 
mencement of this Survey, my fend, Rev. J. L. Russell, of 
Hingham, has carefully prepared a catalogue of the mosses in 
the eastern part of the State, which he was kind enough to 
place at my disposal. I was not willing that its publication 
should be delayed till the appearance of this volume, and it has 
been published in the Boston Journal of Natural History. Mr. 
Kdward Tuckerman also prepared, at my request, a catalogue 
of the lichens found on the bark of trees in this State. As 
it is to be hoped that he will soon give us a complete account of 
the lichens of New England, for which work he is amply pre- 
pared, it would be domg him injustice to publish an imperfect 
catalogue. ‘The deficiency in the history of the Algz is likely 
to be soon supplied, by Prof. Bailey, of West Point, in the 
thorough manner of which he has given evidence in the Scien- 
tific Journal. 
in writing my descriptions, I have, as far as possible, avoided 
the use of technical language. To avoid it entirely is im- 
possible. When a part, an organ, a form, or a modification 
of form is spoken of which has no English name, it must 
either be called by its scientific name, or it must be described 
by a tedious circumlocution, repeated as often as the thing is 
spoken of, and, after all, scarcely more intelligible even to the 
unlearned reader than the scientific word, which expresses pre- 
cisely the thing meant and nothing else. 
In the preparation of the Report, I have availed myself of 
whatever I found most to my purpose, but never, intention- 
ally, without giving credit, except in the cases mentioned 
above. ‘The numerous facts obtained from Loudon and Mi- 
chaux, are usually given in their words. Some of the best 
