PREFACE 
Xiif 
iiian^ with whom I had previously been on terms of in- 
timate friendship, was now in possession of an extreme- 
ly valuable collection of living and dried plants, to which 
I had unrestrained access. To his liberality I am in- 
debted for many new and scarce specimens, which filled 
Up a desideratum in mV collection, particularly in the 
plants of Lower Louisiana and Georgia. Those species 
exclusively received from his collection I have distin- 
guished by c<r v. s. in Herb. Lnslen ” 
At the same time I had frequent opportunities of 
Seeing the herbarium and collection of living plants of 
Mr. John Lyon, a gentleman through whose industry 
and skill more new and rare American plants have lately 
been introduced into Europe than through any other 
channel whatever. Those plants particularly adopted 
from his collection I have marked with (C v. s . in Herb . 
Lyon” 
By these and several other connections, which it k 
unnecessary to mention here, added to my own occa- 
sional excursions through the different parts of the 
United States, I was put in possession of an extensive 
herbarium, containing plants from all the different parts 
of North America $ which when summed up would 
nearly double the number of those described in Mi- 
chaux’s excellent Flora. As that work was then ex- 
tremely scarce in America, I determined to publish a Com- 
pendium of it, executed on the plan of Hoffmann's 
Flora Germanica, which work I had no doubt would be 
acceptable to the botanist, and particularly so to the 
cultivator. I communicated my design to Messrs. Brad- 
ford and Inskeep, booksellers at Philadelphia, who gave 
me every encouragement towards the prosecution thereof. 
