NORTH AMERICAN FLORA. 275 
The chain of the great fresh-water lakes, which are dis- 
charged by the brimming St. Lawrence, seems to have little 
effect upon our botany, beyond the bringing down of a few 
northwestern species. But you may note with interest that 
they harbor sundry maritime species, mementoes of the for- 
mer saltness of these interior seas. Cakile Americana, much 
like the European Sea Rocket, Hudsonia tomentosa (a pe- 
culiar Cistaceous genus imitating a Heath), Lathyrus mari- 
timus, and Ammophila arenaria, are the principal. Salicor- 
nia, Glaux, Scirpus maritimus, Ranunculus Cymbalaria, 
and some others, may be associated with them. But these 
are widely diffused over the saline soil which characterizes 
the plains beyond our wooded region. 
I have thought that some gence considerations like these 
might have more interest for the biological section at large 
than any particular indications of our most interesting plants, 
and of how and where the botanist might find them. Those 
who in these busy days can find time to herborize will be in 
the excellent hands of the Canadian botanists. At Philadel- 
phia their brethren of the United States will be assembled to 
meet their visitors, and the Philadelphians will escort them to 
. their classic ground, the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. To 
have an idea of this peculiar phytogeographical district, you 
may suppose a long wedge of the Carolina coast to be thrust 
up northward quite to New York harbor, bringing into a com- 
paratively cool climate many of the interesting low-country’ 
plants of the south, which, at this season, you would not care 
to seek in their sultry proper homes. Years ago, when Pursh 
and Leconte and Torrey used to visit it, and in my own 
younger days, it was wholly primitive and upsoiled. Now, 
when the shore is lined with huge summer hotels, the Pitch 
Pines carried off for firewood, the bogs converted into Cran- 
berry-grounds, and much of the light sandy or gravelly soil 
planted with wine-yards or converted into Melon and Sweet- : 
potato patches, I fear it may have lost some of its botanical 
attractions. But large tracts are still nearly in a state of 
nature. Drosera filiformis, so unlike any European species, 
and the beautiful Sabbatias, the yellow Fringed Orchis, 
