IV 
PREFACE. 
be found to have published under new names 
some species already known in Europe, some 
which may have been imperfectly or incorrectly 
described by preceding authors, or some which 
he himself may have mistaken. While there- 
fore he hopes that the errors from these sources 
will not be numerous, he could yet only offer it 
as “a sketch” in which he has included all such 
plants within the limits of South-Carolina and 
Georgia as he has had an opportunity of exam- 
ining, and such as had been ascribed to the same 
districts by Botanists on whose authority he 
thought himself compelled to rely. 
He trusts, however, that this Sketch will be 
found to have somewhat extended the know- 
ledge of the Botany of the Southern States; 
that it contains descriptions of many plants not 
heretofore known; that it has rectified some er- 
rors; that it has elucidated some of the doubt- 
ful plants in the works of our older writers, and 
that it contains a careful, and he hopes a faithful 
description of such plants as he himself has seen. 
In the time which has elapsed since the pub- 
lication of the early numbers of this work many 
changes have taken place in Botanical nomen- 
clature, many reforms which by limiting more 
strictly generic characters, have led to many 
subdivisions of old genera. The natural order 
of the Gramineae in particular has been remo- 
delled, and in some of the most natural families, 
the Cruci ferae, the Umbelliferae, and the Com- 
posite, an almost entirely new distribution of 
