161 



has been too long delayed must be admitted, we think, by all. 

 In the hitroduction to the work we meet with a severe disap- 

 pointment. It comprises only six pages, while at least sixteen 

 might with the greatest profit have been devoted to it. We can 

 readily understand how fifteen years of daily acquaintance with 

 the representatives of the different sections of the State flora 

 might tend to make any remarks thereupon appear trite to the 

 mind of the learned author. But the less well-informed public 

 would have profited by some extended discussion of the charac- 

 teristics of those sections — illustrations of the classification which 

 is barely mentioned in outline. Our trap-rock flora and that of 

 the limestone regions to the northward; the relations of the pine 

 barren plants to those of the adjacent region ; the peculiarities 

 of our salt nxirsh vegetation, and those interesting plants which 



are mentioned as having crept into our western borders : all these 

 would iiave furnished most interesting and instructive matter to 

 thousands of readers and students who know little or nothing of 

 them. As it is we are informed with great brevity that *' our 

 flora may thus be divided with considerable accuracy Into a north- 

 ern and a southern, whose present distribution has been deter- 

 mined by differences of soil and climate/' and *' the conclusion 

 reached at the time the Preliminary Catalogue was written, 

 that they are most naturally separated by the glacial terminal 

 moraine, appears to be substantiated. * * * Besides these 

 two maui divisions of our flora, there is another, which may be 

 termed the marine and coast group of plants, species and varieties 

 especially characteristic of the sea beaches and salt or brackish 

 marshes and meadows. Some of these are plainly forms of up- 

 land origin, which have accommodated themselves to their saline 

 surroundings, and been thereby shghtly changed in structure and 

 appearance, so as now to be evidently distinct from their inland 

 neighbors and relatives, while others appear to be very distinct 

 from any other living forms. # * ♦ This division of the flora 

 is very uniform in character from one end of the coast line to the 

 other, and is the most distinct and difierentiatcd of all. 



** We may also make out a fourth group of species of espec- 

 ial western distribution, there being a few plants mainly confined 

 to the Delaware River valley, and reaching their greatest devel- 



