PREFACE.
The purpose of this volume is to assist a very large and increasing class of persons who possess a strong love of flowers, but to whom the ordinary "Floras"—indispensable as they are to the scientific botanist—are as books written in an unknown tongue. With the enormous increase of our town populations, and the greater facilities for home travel, there has grown up a truer appreciation of the country and of all that is beautiful in nature; and it is hoped that this work may be of service to those who thus steal back to the arms of their Mother, but have not time or inclination to spell out and painfully translate the carefully-made terms of the exact descriptions which learned men have written for the use of the scientific student. Such terms are absolutely necessary, for the things they describe were unknown to our Celtic and Saxon forefathers, who would otherwise have left us names for them which would now be familiar words to all. In a work like the present such words could not be entirely avoided, but they have been used sparingly, and in a manner that will not involve continual reference to a dictionary of scientific terms.
