THE FLORA OF MINNESOTA. 



The following catalogue of the plants of Minnesota is presented 

 as a report of progress in this department of the geological and 

 natural history survey of the state. It includes not only the 

 observations of the state geologist and his assistants upon this 

 survey, but also those of earlier botanic collectors and explorers, 

 enumerating all the species that are known to have been found in 

 Minnesota by all observers up to the present time. Grateful men- 

 tion of the various sources, in chronologic order, from which this 

 list is largely a compilation, is therefore its most appropriate pre- 

 face. 



Hennepin, Carver, Pike, and other early explorers of this state, 

 occasionally refer to some of its forest trees, wild fruits and berries, 

 and plants used for food or medicine by the Indians. Carver, who 

 traveled to the upper part of the Minnesota river in 1767, wrote of 

 the region through which it flows: — ''Wild rice grows here in great 

 abundance; and every part is filled with trees bending under their 

 loads of fruits, such as plums, grapes, and apples; the meadows are 

 covered with hops, and many sorts of vegetables; whilst the ground 

 is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard, and ground- 

 nuts." On the uplands bordering the river he saw "such amazing 

 quantities of maples, that they would produce sugar sufficient for 

 any number of inhabitants." 



The first published list of plants, so far as known to the writer, 

 that includes species found in Minnesota, is in the American Jour- 

 nal of Science, vol. iv, 1822, pages 56 to 69, entitled "Notice of the 

 Plants collected by Professor D. B. Douglass, of West Point, in 

 the expedition under Governour Cass, during the summer of 1820, 

 around the Great Lakes and the upper waters of the Mississippi: 

 the arrangement and description, with illustrative remarks, being 

 furnished by Dr. John Torrey." This includes 115 species, 26 of 

 which were from Minnesota. 



The appendix of Keating's Narrative of Major Long's Expedition 

 in the year 1823, along the Minnesota river and the Red river of 



