- yr 
1915] Collins,— November Flowers 37 
The 92 species in the list represent 26 families; Compositae with 38 
species, Cruciferae with 8, Caryophyllaceae with 6, Leguminosae with 5, 
Rosaceae with 4, no other with more than 3. The Compositae are 
especially a family of autumn plants with us, and their predominance 
is not unnatural, though the extreme predominance may be somewhat 
surprising, 41 per cent, against 13 per cent of the flowering plants in 
Gray's Manual. The monocotyledons have only one species, the 
trees one species; both these in the Torrey list, neither in mine. Of 
the 92 species, 40 are introduced, being 43 per cent; 1f we exclude the 
Compositae with the asters and golden rods, all native, 55 per cent are 
introduced species; only 17 per cent of the flowering plants in the 
Manual are introduced. Two reasons may be suggested for their 
predominance; immigrants that have established themselves probably 
represent the few hardy and persistent species among the many that 
have at some time or other landed on our shores, and perhaps taken 
out their first papers, but never secured citizenship. Many of these 
species come from lands where the season of vegetation is longer than 
with us; they have not completed what would be their normal period 
at home at a time when native plants are quite through for the year. 
Two plants have seemed to me good instances of this latter condition; 
Senecio vulgaris and Erodium cicutarium. Little is seen of either 
at midsummer, but they are conspicuous in early spring and late 
autumn; and at any time through the winter a few warm days will 
bring them out. 
Some of my species are in the list on single observations, and Mr. 
Torrey notes the same as to some of his; but with others, the case was 
different; they came not as spies, but whole battalions. Aster eri- 
coides, which Mr. Torrey did not see at all, was very abundant in 
Zastham the first part of November; I saw fields showing white with 
it at quite a distance. Large plants of Cirsium discolor were frequent, 
mostly out of bloom and even the seeds gone, but still a few perfect 
heads on each, and here and there an individual quite in full bloom. 
Three times I saw Rosa virginiana, only a single flower each time, but 
that as perfect as in June. Two plants in Mr. Torrey’s list, Viola 
pedata and Antennaria plantaginifolia, may be considered as precocious 
rather than belated, none in my list. 
Mr. Torrey’s list had Wellesley for a center, but covered quite an 
area; six species, he states, he did not collect himself, but they were 
contributed by a friend whose collecting extended into Essex County. 
