FLORA OF WASHINGTON AND VICINITY. 47 



tion. The Garyoplyllacece are remarkable for showing the same percent- 

 age in all of the four floras now under comparison. The Salicacece are 

 largely in excess of every flora compared in the table except that of 

 Essex County, INIassachusetts, while the Onagracece and Saxifragacece 

 both fall below the normal, the latter, however, showing a southern 

 tendency. The Waiadacecv are southern, as are also the Polemoniaceoe, 

 while the Chenopodiacece are slightly in excess in their degree of rei)re- 

 sentation. 



jS'ow, as this locality has been classed as northern, we should not 

 expect to find it occupying an intermediate position, which would place 

 it on the boundary line between the northern and the southern flora, 

 but we should exj)ect to find it agreeing closely with the northern flora, 

 or at least lying midway statistically, as it does geographically, between 

 the dividing line or medium represented by the total eastern flora and 

 the northern flora. So far from this being the case, however, we actu- 

 ally find it occupying a position considerably below this medium line 

 and between this and the line of the southern flora; a position which 

 would be geographically represented by the latitude of Nashville or 

 Ealeigh, or even by Memphis or Chattanooga. 



This result is very remarkable, and while the proofs from statistics 

 are iierhaps not alone to be relied upon, it serves to confirm many facts 

 recorded in this work, and others not yet recorded, which have puzzled 

 the observers of the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom in this locality. 



The results of the careful comparison of the two remaining columns 

 need not be here summed up, as the reader will readily perceive tlieir 

 general import, and he will not be likely to stop with considering the 

 relations of the local flora with those of the far West, but will probably 

 seek for more general laws governing the vegetation of the eastern and 

 western sections, as we have already done to some extent for the north- 

 ern and southern sections. 



X. ABUNDANT SPECIES. 



It was Humboldt who remarked that of the three great Kingdoms of 

 Nature — the Mineral, the Vegetable, and the Animal — it is the Vegetable 

 Kingdom which contributes most to give character to a landscape. This 

 is very true, and it is also true that botanists rarely take account of this 

 fact. The latter are always interested in the relative numbers of species 

 belonging to diflerent Classes, Families, and Genera, rather than to the 

 mere superficial aspect of the vegetation. It is, however, not the num- 



