siderable porti cities, spots, which, from the narrowness of their extent, and from the multitude of botanists by whom they are likely to be inspected, we may suppose to have undergone a more perfect scrutiny than any of the wild recesses in the West. Do we find that either of these collections has exhausted the botany even of the confined district which its plan comprehends? So far is this from being the fact, that every day is exposing the deficiencies of our most valuable Floras. Our readers will not doubt, from what we have said in another part of this article, that we entertain a high opinion of the Florula Bostoniensis. This work embraces a narrow circuit of less than two hundred square miles in area, its localities seldom departing from Milton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Brighton, Watertown, Cambridge, Medford, Charlestown and Chelsea, all included in the half of a small circle of which Boston is the centre, as may be perceived by casting the eye upon Hales' Map; and we have good reason to believe that, open to examination as this tract is in all its parts, the five hundred species described in the Florula do not exceed three quarters of the species growing spontaneously in the vicinity of Boston. Now if we recollect that the vicinity of Boston exhibits no extraordinary varieties of soil or structure, that it is shaded by few and those insignificant forests, that it presents hardly one of those rich watered glens, which, in many parts of New England, are perpetually verdant with a diversified succession of luxuriant vegetables, that it is not large enough to contain those mountainous ridges which enjoy such a peculiar vegetation,-if we recollect all these circumstances, and at the same consider how many plants in this district were overlooked by the practised eye of so discerning a botanist as Dr Bigelow, what shall we say of all those other more extensive districts in the Atlantic States, in which the foot of a botanist treads only by chance and at protracted intervals? We do not mean to infer from this, that every space of two hundred miles in extent from Maine to Georgia would afford a century or two of species omitted in all existing collections of our plants, because the vegetation of most of the Middle and Eastern States is so uniform, that a botanist, who has examined all the plants growing near Albany or New York, for example, has probably seen most, but certainly not all, of those which could be found about Boston, and the reverse; and thus a naturalist, who elucidates the botany of any con towards elucid surely we shal botany even of but imperfectl fact, that the F and supposing two and a half capable of fur position we r shall still have botanists in th Beside thes considerations to certain grou which we will calculations of ployed for that form a tenth p Gramineæ with Junceæ one ei have remarked neglected am Grasses in a gi lect; but the intricate in thei are even now s Ostentatious fan the Composita, gamous plants, our fields with t this family is pe ions, in a few of the specific. Th Solidago contain The natural o boldt to be as follo Junces one 1521, S6th, Ericez and B Te one 57th, Cruci 72d, Leguminosa o Supposing the who in Pursh's Flora. New Series, siderable portion of a single State, as Connecticut, does much towards elucidating that of the whole of New England. But surely we shall be justified in concluding from it, that the botany even of the best inhabited parts of the country is still but imperfectly known. And only adverting to the single fact, that the Florula Bostoniensis contains two new species, and supposing that in the average every hundred miles in the two and a half millions comprehended by the United States is capable of furnishing a non-descript species, in which supposition we really can see nothing unreasonable, and we shall still have an immense field of investigation remaining for botanists in the United States. Beside these general views of the subject there are distinct considerations belonging to some of the natural orders and also to certain groupes of plants apart from the natural orders, of which we will only mention a few examples. From the exact calculations of a botanist, whom the Baron de Humboldt employed for that service,* it appears that the Gramineæ alone form a tenth part of our phænogamous vegetables, and the Graminea with the two proximate families of Cyperoidea and Junceæ one eighth part of the same; and although, as we have remarked before, these families were till recently much neglected among us, yet Muhlenberg's Description of the Grasses in a great measure atones for and remedies this neglect; but the numerous Gramineæ and Cyperoideæ are so intricate in their characters, that we can hardly suppose they are even now so fully elucidated as the more attractive and ostentatious families. Another extensive order is formed of the Composite, which amount to one sixth part of our phænogamous plants, and at some seasons of the year almost cover our fields with their luxuriant flowers. Next to the Gramineæ, this family is perhaps the most difficult in its lower subdivisions, in a few of the generic differences and in very many of the specific. The kindred genera of Erigeron, Inula, Aster and Solidago contain each so many species, and these so much alike The natural orders of our phænogamous plants are stated by Humboldt to be as follows, namely: Cyperoideæ one 40th, Gramineæ one 10th, Junceæ one 1521, Labiatæ one 40th, Rhinanthex and Scrophulariæ one 36th, Ericex and Rhododendra one 36th, Compositæ one 6th, Umbelliferæ one 57th, Cruciferæ one 62d, Malvacea one 125th, Caryophyllex one 72d, Leguminosa one 19th, Amentaceæ one 25th, and Conifere one 105th, supposing the whole number taken for the integer to be 2891 as collected in Pursh's Fiora. in their exterior qualities, that modern botanists have been obliged not only to draw out their specific characters to a most burdensome length, but likewise in several cases to resort to the microscope for the detection of well-founded differences for the species. Not to extend these details too far, we will only refer to one more natural assemblage of phænogamous plants, the Amentaceæ and Coniferæ, which include a large proportion of our forest-trees. Of all our vegetable productions these are unquestionably the pride and glory; for none of the forests in other temperate regions of the globe rival ours in variety, magnitude, or splendor. No part of Europe, for instance, in latitudes of corresponding temperature, can exhibit trees of so rich a foliage and inflorescence as the Magnolias, or of such stateliness as the Pinus strobus, sometimes rising to the height of upwards of two hundred feet, with a straight and graceful trunk more than twenty feet in circumference at the base, the Liriodendron tulipifera with a trunk still more beautiful than the pines, the Pavia lutea, Pavia Ohioensis or Rhododendron maximum. Again, the younger Michaux mentions, as a striking fact, that he had observed in the United States a hundred and thirty seven trees, which rise above the height of thirty feet, whereof ninety-five are employed in the arts; but that France, on the contrary, which might be considered a pretty fair representation of the same range of temperature, produced no more than thirty-seven trees of equal height, including but eighteen forest-trees, and that of these only seven were employed in civil or marine architecture. Without stopping to draw the political inferences, which this comparison would suggest, we will merely say that Michaux, in his History of our Forest Trees was so far from exhausting the subject, that he did not even pretend to have crossed the Mississippi, that he confessedly left the history of the trees even on this side the mountains incomplete, and that several very important additions have already been made to the forest-trees which he was able to enume rate. : All that precedes will apply only to the phænogamous species for we shall find our agamous plants to have been generally neglected by naturalists. Clayton sent Gronovius an account of only ninety-five species of this extensive class, Michaux falls short of the same number, and, as we have already observed, no part of them excepting the ferns engaged the attention of Cryptogamia. : at present be restricted publ etable product ists should bes class will not l with encourage Cryptogamous recently printed executed after In addition to in the botanical other very imp affinity between there are many two continents, ca, Diapensia borealis, Draba Anemone nem nunculi; and grated with the Sonchus olerac cyamus niger, Yet so multitudinous are the attention of Pursh or Nuttall. the plants of this family, that Muhlenberg, in his Catalogue, makes mention of more than eight hundred species, and about one seventh of all the genera there enumerated are of the class Cryptogamia. And what sets the deficiency of our botanical publications on this head in a clearer light is the fact affirmed by Dr Schweiniz, that he himself had observed nearly one thousand six hundred species of the single order of Fungi in the western part of North Carolina. Eaton gives us very complete descriptions of a hundred cryptogamous genera and a cursory account of four hundred and seventy-six species; which is very much more than any preceding botanist has done but Eaton and Nuttall both refer us on this head to Muhlenberg's long-promised Flora Lancastriensis. How far the labors of Dr Muhlenberg and Mr Collins, who are understood to have been particularly sedulous concerning the cryptogamous families, might go towards supplying the deficient information on this subject, we cannot tell. These plants, however, which it almost baffled the ingenuity of Linnæus himself to arrange, abundant as they are in this country, can at present be studied with no better assistance than a few restricted publications afford, so that upon no class of our vegetable productions is it more desirable that experienced botanists should bestow their industry. But our knowledge of this class will not long remain so imperfect, if Dr Schweiniz meets with encouragement to publish his intended Description of the Cryptogamous Plants of North America; of which he has recently printed a specimen, containing the hepatic mosses, executed after the manner of Pursh's Flora. In addition to these and other general or particular defects in the botanical collections relating to the United States, another very important object of inquiry is the difference and affinity between our plants and those of Europe. No doubt there are many vegetables, which were always common to the two continents, such as Epilobium alpinum, Azalea Lappouica, Diapensia Lapponica, Carex curta, Betula nana, Linnæa borealis, Draba nivalis, Lobelia Dortmanna, Humulus Lupulus, Anemone nemorosa, several of the Veronica, Arenaria and Ranunculi; and many likewise which are known to have emigrated with the colonists, Leontodon Taraxacum, for instance, Sonchus oleraceus, Arctium Lappa, Conium maculatum, Hyoscyamus niger, Chelidonium majus, Symphytum officinale, Triti cum repens, Raphanus Raphanistrum, Cnicus arvensis, Malva rotundifolia, Ornithogalum umbellatum and Polygonum aviculare; and some which we have imparted to Europe, as Rumex sanguineus, Erigeron Canadense, Phytolacca decandra, several Ambroseæ and Amaranthi; but the number of plants originally common to the eastern and western continents is much smaller than has been generally imagined, if it be true, which has been affirmed on good authority, that Pursh's Flora contains only three hundred eighty-five plants properly European, that is, no more than of the phænogamous vegetables then ascertained to spring up spontaneously in the United States. Even this small number is continually diminishing; for although certain plants, beyond a question, are actually common to the two continents, especially some of the boreal and alpine plants, yet late botanists have made new species of many of the plants which were formerly accounted European. Thus the plants, which were long supposed to be Viola canina, Trientalis Europæa, Valisneria spiralis, Erythronium dens canis, Alisma Plantago, Crataegus oxyacantha, Sorbus aucuparia and Cypripedium Calceolus, and of course European, are considered as distinct by Pursh and others under the names of Viola debilis, Valisneria Americana, Erythronium Americanum, Alisma trivialis, Crataegus apiifolia, Sorbus microphylla and Cypripedium parviflorium. Nor is this all the difficulty. Not unfrequently an American plant occurs, which, in its exterior botanical aspect, is incapable of being distinguished from the European, but yet is known to be essentially different in its chemical or physiological properties. Dr Bigelow adduces two or three remarkable instances of this fact, in his interesting, and, so far as we could judge in examining much of the same scenery with his work in our hands, very complete and accurate Description of the White Mountains. A species of * Humboldt, in the work referred to above, seems to think that Poly. gonum aviculare was always common; but Josselyn, in his Rarities of New England, recounts it among the emigrants. It may be mentioned here, that the remarks in the text are confined to Europe. Pallas's Herbarium and Flora Rossica evince that the plants of North Asia have great affinity with our own; and the eastern shores of Asia between the parallels of thirty and forty five are said to contain many plants also found on the eastern shore of North America. Asiatic Tartary appears generally to resemble the primitive state of North America in climate, vegetable productions, aboriginal inhabitants and dialects so much more than any other region of the world, that a judicious investigation of the subject is a great desideratum in our historical antiquities. Ethusa growi with Ethusa d alliaceous tast other instance. Asarum Cana upon the hum culty be disti A still more st the son thoug nea vesca, re shape of the thing in our of a specific porous, weak highest estima Italy the chest brandy-casks, been found Throughout F of casks and young chestn tough and ela liarly eligible this country too brittle to ever, the ches standing expo! ture and dryne the Middle S enclosures.* suffice to show . The trunk of thickness. One mount Etna is a circumference, or ing only by mean this chestnut are s from Sancerre in perfectly sound t which for six hu No chestnuts of States; but the c are as large as th des Arbres Fores |