124 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



will be unwilling to adopt the belief that there are certain well- 

 marked districts of plants in the six States. The maritime plants 

 may be readily classed together, and, in like manner, the Alpine 

 and sub-Alpine Flora of the White Mountains and Katahdin. But 

 there are others, more or less confluent perhaps, which all botanists 

 will readily recognize. Thus the West Connecticut district, so 

 thoroughly examined by Drs. Barratt and Ives, contains very many 

 herbs, shrubs, and even forest trees, not known to exist in other 

 districts. 



Other well marked districts are Western Massachusetts ; South- 

 eastern Massachusetts, including Rhode Island ; Northern Vermont, 

 etc. As a general rule the characteristic species of each district 

 are few in number, but the individuals of each species occur abun- 

 dantly. Let us notice, for example, the difference between the 

 plants of Hampshire county, Mass., and the plants of Southern 

 New Hampshire. These districts are one hundred miles apart — a 

 distance hardly great enough to account on any climatic hypothesis 

 for so great a difference as exists. In the former we find occuri'ing 

 frequently Lygodium palmatum, Ophioglossum vulgatum, Camp- 

 tosorus rhizophyllus, Allosorus atropurpureus and gracilis, Asple- 

 nium Ruta-muraria and angustifolium, Carex squarrosa. Verbena 

 angustifolia, Pedicularis lanceolata, Pterospora Andromedea, Azalea 

 nudiflora, etc., etc. I have searched very carefully among Oakes' 

 lists of plants of Southern New Hampshire, and among many cata- 

 logues and Herbaria, and a large portion of the district itself, for any 

 of these species, but in vain. And since English botanists make 

 smaller and less important districts than these two are, I think there 

 can be no reason for not accepting them. The question now arises, 

 how can one know the points along the dividing line of any two 

 districts ? Since we have chosen these two as an illustration, it 

 may be advisable to give the results of protracted herborizing, along 

 the borders, on either side of what is accepted as the provisional line 

 of demarcation. None of the above plants have as yet been found 

 farther nortlieast than a line running from Athol to North Brook- 

 field, Mass., and the New Hampshire plants arc not found, plenti- 

 fully, west of the same line. 



It will be perhaps noticed that these two districts have, for their 

 centres. Concord, Mass., and Greenfield, Mass., these nearly coin- 

 ciding with those marked out in the Mass. catalogue of plants ap- 

 pended to the final Report upon the Geology, in which Boston and 

 Amherst arc made two central points. 



