A CATALOGUE OP THE FLOE A OF DETROIT. 



O. A. FARWELL, DETROIT. 



(Reprinted, with additions, from Eleventh Annual Report (,'ommissioners of Parks and 



Boulevards, Detroit.) 



My field work at Detroit has been extended over a series of eight 

 years and has been confined for tlie most part to the eastern part of 

 the city. In Detroit, as in most western cities with a territory of 

 several miles in extent, there are several localities where the soil' has 

 not been turned b}' the ploughshare nor the forest disturbed by the 

 woodman's ax. Such a place is that known as the Linden Park sub- 

 division. It is a plat of land comprising several acres and lies east of 

 the boulevard between Kercheval avenue on the south and Gratiot 

 avenue on the north; at the. northeast corner of this plat is situated the 

 old race course and driving park, now overgrown with shrubbery, etc. 



Belle Isle is an island at the head of Detroit river, about two miles 

 long by one-half in width. The lower half has been largely cleared 

 and improved for park purposes, but the upper half is still adorned 

 with its virginal vegetable splendors. It is to Detroit what Coney 

 Island, Central Park, etc., is to New York and is visited by thousands 

 of pleasure seekers every day during the hot summer months. It is 

 a }»art of the Detroit park system and in order to gather any of the 

 wild plants that grow ui)on the island a permit from the Board of Park 

 and Boulevard Commissioners is a si)ie qua noii : I have been most 

 fortunate in this respect, having been able, with but one exception, to 

 obtain a permit each year. The greater part of the plants mentioned 

 in this list have been collected from one or the other of these localities, 

 but the grass}' banks along the thinly populated streets, the ditches 

 or gutters, and the ballast grounds have yielded some interesting 

 things; also the wooded fields near Palmer Park (of the park system 

 of Detroit) but this locality is outside of the city. 



The character of the soil is much the same in all these places, it being 

 a low, slightly undulating plain mainly of clayey composition. We will 

 not therefore find a varied flora. In the canals, rivers, and ponds may 

 be seen the water lilies, the millfoils, the potamogetons and the utricu- 

 larias; the low marshy grounds give rise to the buttercups, lilies and 

 sedges; while such })lants as the St. John's Wort, compositiB and figworts 

 are usually found growing on the drier grounds. In the River Rouge 

 in the western part of the- city may be found the rare American lotus, 

 Xchimho Icutva (Willd.) Pers. This, however, I have been given to 

 understand is not indigenous to this river but has probably been intro- 

 duced from near Monroe. In Gray's Synoptical Flora the plant is said 

 to be indigenous from Michigan and Minnesota to Texas and eastward. 

 It has been said, however, that throughout the central states the plant 

 is only an introduction, brought north by the Indians from farther 

 south. Pota)iio(/cton rutilus, Mr. Wheeler informs me, was collected by 

 himself in Detroit river just above Belle Isle but I have not as yet 



