TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETING. 99 



It is impossible here to discuss the successive steps by which, from such 

 data, another link in the chain of evidence bearing upon some of the most 

 difficult questions regarding organic evolution has been wrought out and 

 found to stand the test. Enough has been said to show how impossible 

 it is to take an intelligent general survey of the flora of such a state as this 

 without, at the same time, extending our range of vision, both in space and 

 time. To know in their just relations the plants of Michigan, one must 

 know, in a restricted, perhaps, but nevertheless a very real sense, the 

 plants of the world. On the other hand, the whole scientific world, with- 

 out regard to national boundaries, is interested in the study and preserva- 

 tion of the flora of Michigan. The extermination of a single plant in some 

 out-of-the-way corner, while apparently a small affair, may be the blotting 

 out of the single remaining record of an important chapter in the earth's 

 history, a record that, once lost, can never be restored. 



AVithout dwelling further upon such considerations, may I briefly suggest 

 some of the possibilities of our Michigan flora that naturally occur to those 

 who are engaged more or less constantly in its study? 



It can hardly be doubted that, in ornamental planting, particularly, we 

 •are still making too much of imported plants and too little of the products 

 of our own soil. Our indigenous species of elm, maple, and basswood are 

 superior in vigor and beauty to those imported from Europe, and our pine 

 and hemlock far more graceful in their habit than the stifl' foreign coni- 

 fers that have so long usurped their place. There is no reason for saying 

 that the foreigner must go, but there is the highest reason for determining 

 that the native-born denizen of the soil shall stay. We have found out 

 that our own white elm is worth more than all the introduced species 

 together, for lawn and street planting, but we have still much to learn 

 regarding the capabilities of a long list of indigenous trees still seldom 

 used. 



The same thing holds true regarding our native flowers. Many of them 

 are a„ ..^^ lisitely beautiful as the lillies, orchids, and heaths of the most 

 distant regions of the globe; yet we have made remarkably slow progress 

 in learning their habits and how to care for them, as they slowly accom- 

 modate themselves to the changed conditions under which they must live, 

 if they live at all, after the complete transformation of our territory from 

 a wilderness into a highly cultivated state. Some of these, like the beau- 

 tiful wind-flower, Anemonella fhalictroides, will flourish in all their wild 

 beauty on the merest handful of congenial soil. Others are shy of the 

 controlling hand of man, and doubtless some may be wholly incapable of 

 surviving the changes of advancing civilization; but here are the repre- 

 sentatives of a most beautiful flora, one that has most perfectly adapted 

 itself to all the varied features of this magnificent peninsula, fading away 

 from our sight, year by year. iSurely, if we can not do more, we can at 

 least give to some of them the necessities of life, leave here and there a 

 sheltered nook for their undisturbed growth, and study their habits and 

 the conditions necessary for their preservation. 



Our indigenous fruits may well claim still more of the attention of those 

 who have the practical skill and the scientific instincts requisite to a deter- 

 mination of their actual or potential value. I have but little knowledge of 

 what may have been attempted already in this direction, but I do know 

 from actual trial that our own blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, straw- 

 berries, and wild plums are good, and I doubt not they might be made 

 much better. Then there is the papaw, the possibilities of which as a cul- 



