Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 127 



The botanical study here given can therefore be regarded as 

 complementary to the soil survey of the region. The Miami sand, 

 which extends from Culver Academy grounds to Murray's, reach- 

 ing west beyond Culver to the large muck areas, exhibits, in the 

 main, a different flora from the Miami sandy loam about the south 

 half of the lake, from Murray's around to Aubeenaubee Creek, and 

 this again is different from the rich woodlands of the Miami 

 gravelly sandy loam extending from Aubeenaubee Creek to Culver 

 Academy grounds. The small intercalated areas of muck along the 

 Inlet and Outlet, and other soil areas, are also associated with more 

 or less peculiar floras, so that on the whole the area about the lake 

 is a veritable botanist's paradise. 



Attention is called to the fact that the botanical work about 

 the lake was done at a time when other duties occupied attention, 

 and, indeed, was done only when studies of the lake permitted 

 momentary interruption. While it is believed practically all the 

 phanerogams of the lake are represented in the list, the same thing 

 can not be said of the land plants, and there is doubtless a consider- 

 able number of gaps yet to be filled to make the list complete, a 

 number of species of the land plants having escaped observation 

 on account of the pressure of more insistent duties. During only 

 one year, 1900-1901, was the work carried on without considerable 

 interruptions. From time to time since then, on short visits to the 

 lake, attention has been paid to the flora as opportunity permitted. 



Although the botanical studies of the lake have been only in- 

 termittent and fitful, they have extended through a considerable 

 series of years and have attracted attention to a phase of botanical 

 study which has not been generally appreciated, namely, the histori- 

 cal phase. 



Of recent years the cataloging of the plants of limited areas 

 has begun to be looked upon as the lowest form of botanical ac- 

 tivity, so thoroughly despised, indeed, in some quarters, that it is 

 not considered sufficiently worth while to engage the attention of 

 first-year high-school pupils, and as a corollary to the contempt 

 with which the "mere systematist" has fallen, the good old habit of 

 "botanizing" and making herbariums and getting acquainted with 

 local fioras has given way in many places to comfortable indoor 

 studies, and the study of botany has become a "sedentary occu- 

 pation." A complete list of the plants of a given area, however, 

 made as a basis for the study of changes of flora in the progress 

 of the years, keeping record of forests removed, of wholesale marsh 

 floras exterminated by drainage and tillage, and of the date of 

 disappearance of original forms and the entrance of new, would 



