INTRODUCTIOK 



The work of a Botanical Siiryey. In the law of March 

 1st, 1872, providing for a Geological and Natural History- 

 Survey of Minnesota, it is directed that an examination of 

 the vegetable productions of the state, embracing all trees, 

 shrubs, herbs and grasses, native or naturalised, shall be 

 included in the said survey. It is furthermore provided that, 

 under the supervision of the Board of Regents, who, by law, 

 are constituted the Directors of the survey, reports shall from 

 time to time be made to the people of the state, and suitable 

 provisions are determined for the distribution of these reports. 

 A task of considerable magnitude is thus laid upon the officers 

 of the survey in whose charge the botanical work is placed. 

 Not only must those conspicuous members of the vegetable 

 kingdom — the flowering plants, pines and ferns — be subjected 

 to examination; but the less prominent and lower forms, such 

 as the fungi, algae, lichens, bacteria, slime-moulds and prob- 

 lematic organisms, must receive what may seem to be their 

 due share of attention. These latter forms from their intim- 

 ate connection with the health, nutrition and activities of man 

 may rightly claim a careful study. But up to the present 

 time very little is known of the lower plant forms as occurring 

 in Minnesota. In the catalogue prepared by A. E. Johnson, 

 and published most fully in the Bulletins of the Minnesota 

 Academy of Sciences, there will be found the first serious 

 effort to bring together into a list some information concern- 

 ing the fungi of the state (1). In Bulletin No. 3 of the Geo- 

 logical and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, Mr. J. C. 

 Arthur, assisted by Messrs. Warren Upham, L. H. Bailey, 

 E. W. D. Holway and others, presents the results of a brief but 

 fruitful collecting trip in northern Minnesota, together with a 

 number of notes compiled from various sources (2). In this 



(I). Johnson: Bull. Acad. Sci. Minn., Vol. 1. (1877-78-79). 



(2). Arthur: Results of Botan. Work in Minn, for 1886. Bull, Geol. and Nat. Hist. 

 Survey, No. 3. (1887). 



