INTRODUCTION 



In any study of a flora it is important that the 

 limits of the floral region are clearly defined. By 

 Early Wild Flowers is meant that group of herbaceous 

 plants that finds its most congenial home in a region 

 roughly defined as extending between parallels forty 

 and fifty degrees of north latitude and westward from 

 the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi Valley at about 

 meridian ninety-five degrees. West of this boundary, 

 the mid-continental plants appear in numbers, and 

 south of it the plants of Southern type are abundant. 

 This floral region also extends southward along the 

 Appalachian range as far as the Carolinas and Georgia; 

 northern Ohio occupies a central position in this region 

 and, as a consequence, possesses almost the entire 

 flora. It is not meant that these plants are limited to 

 this area, they frequently appear out of bounds, but 

 this is their chosen habitat. The list includes those 

 only that are habitually in bloom during the months 

 of March, April, and May. Many of them, of course, 

 are in bloom during June — nature indulges in no fast- 

 and-hard lines — but none belong to the group of early 

 bloomers; they are not the flowers of early spring 

 unless blooming abundantly at some time during these 

 three months. 



It is popularly supposed that the character of the 



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