218 
plants covering Long Island at the present time, it is fortunately 

comparatively easy to determine which plants were native to Long 
Island, and which were introduced consciously or unconsciously by 
the early settlers, although the actual time of introduction is for 
the most part lost in obscurity. It is not hard to designate those 
waifs which have come to Long Island as stowaways in boat bal- 
last or as derelict seeds destined to spring up in the crop plantings. 
Such an enumeration always brings surprise to those who are not 
botanists, since it includes common [European wayside plants not 
native to America, such as dandelions, daisies, clovers, and butter- 
cups, burdock, wild carrot, chicory, and most of the field grasses. 
The plantain was long known to Indians as the “ white man’s foot- 
{te 
step.” The recently introduced Japanese honeysuckle, however, 
gives promise of becoming our worst pest, and its behavior on Long 
Island is much as described by Professor Fernald,t “ The ubiqui- 
tous and unrestrained Japanese Honeysuckle, Lonicera japonica, 1s 
doing its utmost to strangle everything which originally grew in the 
borders of wooded swamps and thickets. Even the strongly ar- 
mored species of Smilax become hopelessly entangled by it and 
more delicate shrubs and herbs are soon obliterated. HH the 
°C. C. CY survives, nothing more beneficial to future generations 
in our southeast could be devised than a vigorous warfare against 
the Japanese Honeysuckle.” 
Those plants which, like the passenger pigeon, have entirely dis- 
appeared from Long Island do not as yet make a formidable list. 
As far as known, only two species of interest have been lost, al- 
though with the constant draining of swamps and marshes ana 
continued cutting of woodlands, many more are doomed to follow. 
Of these two plants the most interesting is a species of Clematis 
“in a 
(C. ochroleuca) at one time cited by Torrey * as crowing 
small sandy copse about half a mile from the South Ferry, Brook- 
lyn; the only known locality of the plant in the state.” It is de- 
scribed by Spingarn* as “a herbaceous perennial species, one to 
two feet high, growing from Staten Island, New York, to Georgia, 
with entire, ovate leaves and solitary, cream-colored or yellowish- 
1 Rhodora 37: 380. 1935. 
2 Flora of New York. Vol. 2, p. 6. 1848. 
8 American Clematis for American Gardens. Nat. Horticultural Mag. 
p. 86. January, 1934. 
