472 
account of the small rainfall and the season of drought, farming, as a 
rule, is not paying and the settlers have been forced to rely on stock 
raising. The little hay needed is cut along the streams. The principal 
hay grasses are: 
Panicum virgatum. Andropogon provincialis. 
Agropyrum repens glaucum. Phalaris arundinacea. 
Elymus canadensis. Calamagrostis canadensis, 
Elymus virginicus, Calamagrostis neglecta. 
Poa nemoralis. Panicularia nervata. 
At Hot Springs a new Poa was found, described in this report under 
the name of Poa pseudopratensis, and here also Savastana odorata 
occurred, 
MINNEKAHTA PLAINS. 
The Minnekahta Plains are not plains such as we find in central 
Nebraska, but a high, rolling table-land, between the foothills to the > 
south and the Harney Range to the north. Geologically they are made 
up of two formations. The southern partis an expansion of the so-called 
“Race Track” produced by the outcropping of the Red Beds, which is 
here wider than in any other part of the Hills.!. As the vegetation 
nowhere fully covers the ground the whole landscape receives a pecul- 
iar reddish color. In the northern part the underlying carboniferous 
limestone comes to the surface. As the strata are lying comparatively 
undisturbed in their natural relation, the surface is less rugged than in 
other parts of the Black Hills, and there is here little difference in 
surface condition between the limestone formation and the Red Beds 
south of it, except in the color of the soil. 
The Minnekahta Plains are crossed by the Burlington and Missouri 
River Railroad from a few miles south of the Minnekahta station to 
Pringle, where the road enters the mountain range. The plains are 
covered with grass and are mostly used as pastures, but part is under 
cultivation, The region seems to suffer somewhat from drought. I 
collected there in August, but found very little of interest. Woody 
plants were searce. On the hills grew some pines, dwarf sumaes or 
skunk brush, and sand cherries; in the draws some box elders, cotton- 
woods, gooseberries, and plums. Among herbs of interest there oc- 
curred two stragglers from the South, viz: Asclepias verticillata pumila, 
and Acerates auriculata, and the following were abundant on the rail- 
road embankment: 
Amaranthus blitoides. Solanum triflorum. 
Setaria viridis. Saponaria vaccaria, 
Beside the common upland grasses, a few of special interest were 
collected, viz: Poa fendleriana, Sporobolus heterolepis, Danthonia spi- 
cata. The first is of a more western range and the others are from the 
Kast. All three were found in the neighborhood of Pringle. Other- 
wise the flora was much the same as in the foothills. 
1On the east side it is narrow and its tlora does not differ from that of the foothills. 
