20 KANSAS Academy of Science. 



but when it seeded it was found to be identical with the buffalo grass, which at that 

 time was abundant 150 miles west of there. 



It is said the reason why the weeds thrive where our flowers die is " that the ground 

 is mother to the weeds, and only stepmother to the flowers.'" If so, then Kansas is 

 a very generous stepmother, for the readiness with which she adopts new plants is 

 marvelous. 



We all have seen the little circle of blue-grass spring up on the prairie where the 

 prairie schooner dropped anchor for the night: and only give blue-grass or white 

 clover plenty of rain and half a chance and either will utterly exterminate the native 

 grasses. 



Acres of cornfields have been rendered almost worthless by the well known morn- 

 ing glory; let it once escape from cultivation and its persistence is worthy of imita- 

 tion. The same may be said of the Melilotus alba, or sweet clover, which in the East 

 is a tender plant and requires care, but here preempts and occupies fields and road, 

 sides for miles and miles, making a perfect paradise for bees, and even takes posses- 

 sion of the railroad in such quantities that its fragrance is very perceptible to the 

 passengers. Experience has taught me not to place implicit faith even upon Wood's 

 Botany as to what plants are introduced, as once in a trip across the State, from the 

 river to the Rocky Mountains, in a wagon, about seventy miles from the river a new 

 flower was found, and upon analysis I named it Cleome speciosissima or spider 

 flower, which is often cultivated for bee food as well as flowers, and as it is said to 

 be a native of Mexico, it had escaped from cultivation; being near a town, it was the 

 more probable; but the ridicule I endured was a thing to be remembered when in a 

 journey of 1,000 miles we saw it at intervals, and in southern Colorado so abundant 

 that a valley was so purple with it as to be called "Red Ravine." The same plant 

 grew last year in Leavenworth, on the south esplanade, between the street and the 

 river; whether native or escaped from cultivation, I do not know. 



Another plant we first found upon the Blue river was one which is or was put 

 down by Kansas botanists as introduced, and I had that summer left it growing 

 from sale seeds in my garden — the Argemone Mexicana. Of course that had escaped; 

 but when we found it day by day, until at the foot of the Sangre Cristo range there 

 were whole acres of it, and other varieties and different colors not found in the Bot- 

 any at all, that plant was added to the list, which daily grew longer, until if a ca- 

 mellia had been found upon the prairie, no one would have dared said "escaped from 

 cultivation," or suggested that it was not a native — only a carpet-bagger. 



The Abronia umbeleta, sold by florists, was found in the greatest profusion in our 

 western counties; it is only less beautiful than the trailing arbutus, which it greatly 

 resembles, yet I never saw it in a list of our plants, and it is accredited to the Pacific 

 coast. The same is true of the hardy verbena, sold by florists under the name of 

 Verbena Montana, yet it grew in the greatest beauty and fragrance only three coun- 

 ties west of us. I think it is identical with Wood?s Verbena aubletia. Our State line 

 is not so definitely marked upon our western frontier as at the eastern State line, yet 

 I am very sure a very remarkable plant was native in our State at that time. The 

 bush looks some like a willow clump, but it is not woody, and it bears in June and 

 July immense flowers not unlike pumpkin blossoms in size and shape, but the color 

 is reddish purple. 



I first saw the plant in the Platte, beyond Kearney, but being on the cars could not 

 obtain any. Its appearance was so peculiar I remembered it, and some time after 

 Orange Judd gave a description and cut of it in the Agriculturist. He said the 

 roots grew as large as a flour-barrel. Several years later, in 1878, I found it again 

 near our western border, and identified it in Porter & Coulter's survey of Colorado, as 

 Ipomeal leptophylla; but that says nothing of the root, and calls it an annual (with 



