28 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE.* 



medicinal plants are more or less poisonous when eaten in sufficient 

 quantity, but fortunately, in nearly all such cases, there is something 

 repulsive to the taste or to the smell. Unless one is a botanist or takes 

 the advice of a good botanist, it is safest to let strange plants alone. 



NATIVE PLANTS FAST DISAPPEARING. 



The fathers and grandfathers of many of us spent a considerable por- 

 tion of their energies in clearing away trees, shrubs, and breaking up the 

 land that they might have fertile fields. The newer portions of our State 

 are still ra|)idly undergoing this same transition. 



As the country becomes older and. more thickly settled almost every- 

 thing seems to conspire against the trees and smaller plants. Proprietors 

 are still making extensions to their clearings. The "tidy" farmer ditches 

 the cat-holes and marshes, clears out the elders and viburnums to make 

 more room for turnips and better grasses. He turns stock into the wood 

 lot and the Howers of spring and summer retreat to the brush-heaps and a 

 few places inaccessible to the cattle. Fire burns out the dried-up swamps. 

 The ofiflcers of the railroad see that the strips alongside the track are often- 

 mowed. The highways are attacked and the larger vegetation removed. 

 In places, nurserymen or their agents collect large numbers of the choicer 

 wild plants, as prairie roses and lady's slippers. Near high schools and 

 colleges, the student collectors exterminate mau}^ choice plants, root and 

 branch. Many wild plants vigorously protest against these attempts to- 

 ward their extermination, and start again and again to recover the lost 

 ground, but with the hand of a thorough farmer against them, sooner or 

 later they succumb, the scattered remnants only 'surviving in the few re- 

 maining sAvamps, along railroads, on a few ragged hills and out of the 

 way places. 



Let me utter a vigorous protest against the practice of collecting great 

 quantities of fiowers, just to carry home and throw away. And may I 

 hope that every teacher who chances to read this ])aragraph will also 

 utter a protest against this practice? 



LIST OF TREES INDIGENOUS TO MICHIGAN. 



The distinction between a tree and a shrub is a purely arbitrary one. 

 If the trunk attains a diameter of one foot the species ranks as a. tree, if 

 less than a foot it ranks as a shrub. The papaw and the witch-hazel rank 

 as trees in some regions of the country, but in Michigan I have not in- 

 cluded them in the list of trees of the State. I enumerate ninety trees 

 for Michigan. 



Abies balsamea (L.) Miller. Balsam Fir. 



Acer Negundo L. Box Elder. Ash-leaved Maple. Box Elder. 



{Negimdo aceroides Moench.) 



Acer nigrum Michx. Black Sugar Maple. 



{Acer saccharinum nigrum T. & G.) 



Acer Pennsylvanicum L. Striped maple. 



Acer rubrum L. Red Maple. Soft Maple. 



Acer saccharinum L. Silver Maple. Soft Maple. 



{Acer dasycarpum Ehrh.) 



Acer Saccharum Marsh. Sugar Maple. 



{Acer saccharinum Wang.) 



yEsculus glabra Willd. Fetid or Ohio Buckeye. 



Amelanchier Botryapium (L. f.) DC. Shad-bush. 



