376 



(Fox) and Wisconsin rivers, to Prairie du Chien, and thence down the 

 Mississippi, as early as about the year 1813. In his very valuable 

 ''Genera of North American Plants," published in 1818, he makes 

 frequent reference to localities in this State, and has described thirteen 

 new species first discovered by him in these regions. 



The next notice of our plants was published in 1821, in Sillman's 

 Journal,* by Prof. D. B. Douglass and Dr. Johx Toreey; being "a 

 notice of the plants collected by Prof. Douglass, in an expedition under 

 Governor Cass, during the summer of 1820, around the Great Lakes 

 and upper waters of the Mississippi." One hundred and ten plants 

 are enumerated, many of them from within the limits of this State ; and 

 three are indicated as new species. 



In 1S23, Major Long, with a party of scientific gentlemen, under the 

 direction of the Secretary of "War, traversed the North West Territory 

 (as Wisconsin was then called); but unfortunately the botanist was 

 detained, and did not join the Expedition. We have, consequently, only 

 an account of a few plants gathered by the late lamented Thomas Say, 

 naturalist to the Expedition ; these were examined by Lewis de Schwei- 

 MTz, an accomplished botanist of Pennsylvania, and a list of them 

 published in the Narrative of the Expedition. 



The next and last published notice of our plants is in Schoolcraft's 

 "Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca 

 Lake, the actual source of that river, in 1832." This Expedition was 

 accompanied by the late Dr. Douglass Houghton, whose premature 

 death in Lake Superior, while performing his arduous duties of State 

 Geologist of Michigan, is sincerely regretted, not only by all who knew 

 him, but by all the friends of science. The list of plants collected by 

 him in this Expedition, numbers two hundred and forty-seven, of which 

 eifjht Avere new and undescribed. 



Numerous prepared specimens of Wisconsin plants, have, within the 

 last few years, been distributed among the botanists of our own and 

 other countries ; and the critical notices kindly i-eturned by them, have 

 been of much assistance in making this enumeration. It embraces one 

 hundred and thirty-six of the natural orders or families, four hundred 

 and fifty-nine genera, and nine hundred and forty -nine species — all found 

 within thirty miles of the city of Milwaukee, unless other localities are 

 mentioned. 



*76l. IV. p 56. 



