m 
PREFACE. 
This work was prepared, originally, with the view of being 
used as a text book in the class-room, and by private students, 
teaching in a simple and inductive manner the Science of Ana- 
lytical Botany, as also Vegetable Physiology. It did not pro- 
fess to contain a sufficient number of descriptions of genera and 
species to furnish a complete manual for the Botanist in collect- 
ing and labelling plants ; those which were described were 
chiefly the more common, such as the student would be 
most likely to meet with in his botanical excursions, or could 
readily be collected for illustrations before classes, and for 
teaching the mode of analysing and classifying. 
The extensive circulation of this work has encouraged the 
Author and publishers to incur new labor and expense to adapt 
it more fully to the demands of the public. These demands, 
according to the testimony of teachers in various sections of the 
country, are for a greater number of generic and specific de- 
scriptions of plants. We have, therefore, added extensively to 
the catalogue of Southern and Western plants, as also to that of 
more northern latitudes. So that the book will now contain de- 
scriptions of most of the plants of the United States, and cul- 
tivated exotics. We except such of the Cryptogamia and 
Grasses as are too obscure in their characteristics for the atten- 
tion of the general student ; as also some 7teiv Species^ which ap- 
pear to have been separated from their proper and established 
relations, in order to gratify the vanity of imaginary discoverers, 
or to enable them to compliment their friends by giving their 
names to the sujiposed new Species. 
With the Flora of NortJiern, Southern^ and Western plants 
now presented to the public, in connexion with the Familiar 
Lectures on Botany, we hope to have rendered our work such 
as v/ill fully answer public expectation. 
Patapsco Fi:i\TALK Institute, 
(Ellicott's, near Baltimore, Mainland,) 
March 1, 1845. 
