FLORA OF WASHINGTON' AND VICINITY. 15 



giiiia, was only 39,834. It is now, exclusive of the Virginia portion re- 

 ceded to that State, 177,638. To render the comparison more exact, we 

 may add to this latter number the present population of Alexandria 

 County, amounting to 17,545, and we have, in place of 39,834, a popula- 

 tion on substantially the same area of 195,183, or about five times as 

 large. The population of Maryland in 1830 was 447,040, in 1880 it was 

 934,632, or considerably more than twice as large ; that of Virginia in 

 1830 was 1,211,405 ; Virginia and West Virginia, embracing the same 

 territory, now number 2,131,249, the population having not quite 

 doubled ; the retardation, however, as compared with Maryland, is 

 doubtless due entirely to influences affecting the southern counties. 



There were doubtless large areas of primeval forest then within our 

 limits which are now under cultivation, and a much greater variety of 

 soil and woodland was then open to the researches of the botanist. As 

 a consequence, we ought to expect that it would sustain a much richer 

 flora. 



The general results at which I arrive by the process adopted may be 

 summed up as follows : 



1st. That 43 of these names, or 29 per cent, of them, belong to the 

 first class and constitute errors in naming. 



2d. That 12 of these plants, or 8 per cent., belong to the second class 

 or were simply cultivated species and never belonged to this flora. 



3d. That 10 of them, or 7 per cent., belong to the third class and were 

 collected beyond the reasonable limits of our local flora. 



4th. That the remaining 81, or 56 per cent., belong to the fourth class, 

 and represent bonajide discoveries of species which either do not now 

 occur or are so rare as to have escajjed the investigations of the present 

 generation of botanists. 



With regard to the first of these classes, the large number of errors 

 in naming cannot be considered any derogation from the ability or fidel- 

 ity of the compilers of the Prodromus or their immediate predecessors, 

 when we remember the very unsettled state that American botany was 

 in at that time. Both names and authorities were badly confused and 

 errors were committed even by the most experienced botanists. In many 

 of the cases the real plant which it was their intention to designate can 

 be readily told, especially after a comparison with their omissions in the 

 same genus. For example, their Corydalis glauea* as probably also their 



* This may have represented Dicentra Cucullaria not otherwise designated in the 

 Prodromus. 



