15 



any species, of the finding of rare species, the effect of environ- 

 ment upon plants, the uses made of our native species, the names 

 by which they are known to farmers and "herb-doctors," and 

 the meaning of such names, experiments in cultivating and pro- 

 pagating our plants — in short, we want articles upon any subject 

 connected with the recently recognized science of plant-ecology. 



To people accustomed to the trend of modern botanical 

 studies, the title we have selected for our journal might at first 

 seem a misnomer. Judged by present standards, a botanist 

 might be defined as a gentleman engaged in wrangling with his 

 fellows about obscure points of nomenclature or counting hairs 

 and scales in desperate attempts to make two species out of one. 

 Turning to the dictionary, however, we find that a botanist is 

 " one versed in the knowledge of plants." That is exactly what 

 this magazine aims to be, and we invite all who are interested 

 in such subjects as the color and fragance of flowers, the uses 

 and folk-lore of plants, and the curious facts in the behavior of 

 any species to become subscribers. The magazine will always 

 be edited with an eye to their interests. 



It may be questioned whether any journal devoted to popular 

 botany can secure enough original matter of the proper kind to 

 fill twelve numbers yearly. It is the common experience that 

 every magazine we take up contains certain articles of interest, 

 interspersed among many that are too technical for any but a 

 limited number of specialists. While we shall use original mat- 

 ter for the bulk of The American Botanist, we shall also make 

 a feature of re-publishing everything of a popular nature appear- 

 ing in other botanical journals, thus forming a sort of botanical 

 review and enabling our readers to get a survey of the wdiole 

 botanical press by subscribing to a single journal. 



Having issued what we believe to be an interesting number, 

 and promising that succeeding numbers will be even better, we 



