Notes on Plants of the Chicago District 



By E. J. Hill 



In studying the flora of a restricted region, no matter how care- 

 fully it seems to have been explored, one is frequently surprised 

 by finding new things. It almost seems as if such plants ought to 

 be classed with those which are known to be introduced, like many 

 migrants along the railways or escapes from gardens. But they are 

 really old residents that had failed to be detected. No region can 

 be regarded as thoroughly explored till every acre of its wild areas at 

 least has been examined. Then some plants are so rare or local or 

 grow under such peculiar conditions that a (ew square rods or 

 even feet may comprise their range. This is said of the flowering 

 plants and the vascular cryptogams. When we come to the lower 

 orders of plants the space occupied by a given species may be still 

 more restricted. I have in mind a single elm tree to a hollow knot 

 of which I must go to get a little xwo^?,, Anacamptodon splachnoidcs 

 Brid., though I do not suppose it is confined to that one knot of 

 all the like hollows which may be found in the region traversed. 

 But the problem is to find the other places, something I should 

 value in its bearings on work pertaining to the geographical dis- 

 tribution of the mosses of the Chicago region. Yet eight years 

 have passed without additions to that hollow space, fortunately so 

 low down on the trunk as to be in easy reach of eye and hand_ 

 Bearing this in mind, together with the purpose of extending the 

 range of some, plants well known elsewhere, or more particularly, 

 indicating 'their pfesence *here if within their general range as 

 hitherto given, the following notes have been prepared. They are 

 mostly plants detected in the Chicago area during the past two 

 seasons, and such remarks arc added as may serve to elucidate 

 their character. The plants are also largely from the dune region 

 at the south end of Lake Michigan, a tract with a remarkably 

 varied flora, whose sand hills, hollows and swamps are an unfailing 

 delight to botanists. They are arranged in groups the better to 

 compare and indicate their range. 



The most striking of these are such as have ascribed to them 



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