Missouri Botain 
George Engeuv 
BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 13 * 
of the ensuing year to the examination of the principal herbaria, 
which I need not here specify, in Scotland (where the important 
one of Sir Wm. Hooker still remained), England, France, Switzer- 
land and Germany, namely those which contained the specimens 
upon which most of the then-published North American species 
had been directly or indirectly founded, especially those of Linnaeus 
and Gronovius, of Walter, of Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis, Michaux, 
Willdenow, Pursli, and the later ones of DeCandolle and Hooker, 
After my return the work made good progress; the remain- 
ing half of the first volume was brought out in the spring of the 
year 1840, and by tie spring of 1843 the 500 pages of the second 
volume, mostly occupied by the vast order Composite, had been 
issued. But meanwhile I had in my turn to assume professorial 
duties and incident engagements —with che result that, although 
the study of North American plants was at no time pretermitted, 
either by Dr. Torrey while he lived, or by myself, we were unable 
to continue the publication during my associate’s life-time; and it 
was onlv recently, in the spring of 1878, that I succeeded in bring- 
ing <*ut~ in a changed form, another instalment of the work, com- 
pleting the Gamopetakr. ~ 
In the interval I had made two year-long visits to Europe for $ 
botanical investigation, the first partly relating to the botany of 
the South Pacific, the secon l wholly in view of the North Ameri- 
can flora. And since the last publication still another visit — the 
fourth and we may suppose the last — of the same character and 
the same duration, has been successfully accomplished. 
The serious question, in which we are all concerned, arises, 
whether this work can be carried through to a completion, and the 
older parts' (wholly out of print and out of date) re-elaborated — 1 
will not say by my hands— but in my time, or soon enough to 
render the whole a’ reasonably full and homogeneous representa- 
tion of the North American flora, as known in this latter part of 
the nineteenth century. And it brings us to consider why the 
undertaking to which so much time has been devoted, should be so 
slow of accomplishment. 
If this slowness is a constant wonder and disappointm nt to 
most people interested in the matter, I can only add that it is 
hardly less so to myself. It is a constant surprise— if one may so 
say — that the work does not get on faster. . 
Of course the undertaking has become more and more for- 
midable with the enlargement of geographical boundaries and of 
the number of species discovered. As to the increase in the num- 
ber of species to be treated, we have by no means yet reached the 
end. The area, that of our continent down to the Mexican line, 
we trust is definitely, fixed, at least for our day. And, since we 
cannot be rid of the peninsula and keys of Florida, which entails 
upon us a considerable number of tropical species, mostly belong- 
ing to the West Indies— the southern boundary is now as natural 
a one as we can have. 
