I].— REMARKS ON SOME FEATURES OF THE KENTUCKY FLORA. 
By THE LATE PROFESSOR GEORGE Lawson, LL. D.,* 
of Dalhousie College, Halifax, N. 8. 
(Read December 11th, 1893.) 
Having received a set of the extensive collection of plants 
made in the south-eastern part of the State of Kentucky during 
the past summer by Mr. T. H. Kearney, Jr., of the Botanical 
Department of Columbia College, New York, Dr. Lawson 
embraced the opportunity to show some of the more remarkable 
species to the members of the Institute, and to point out some 
of the prominent resemblances and differences in feature between 
the Kentucky and Eastern Canadian floras. 
The most striking feature of the Kentucky flora to a 
Nova Scotian or Eastern Canadian botanist, is the presence of 
noble arboreous forms that do not extend northerly so as to 
spread into Canada, and others that only touch its southern 
limits, about Lake Erie and the western part of Lake Ontario. 
Such southern forms, represented in Mr. Kearney’s collection, 
are seen specially in the magniticent, magnolias, of which three 
species were shown, viz., Magnolia Fraseri, M. macrophylla, 
with leaves a foot or more in length, and M. tripetula. These 
are the remnants of a genus at one time widely spread over the 
American continent, as shown by comparatively abundant fossil 
remains that have been found even in the arctic regions, but. 
which in later time, presumably as the result of climatic change, 
retreated to the south. The specimens of the last named species. 
had ripe fruit, with the remarkable pendent seeds, the nature 
of the thread-like connection between the fruit and seeds being 
described and illustrated by figures from Schnitzlein’s Icono- 
graphia and the American Sylva. 
* This short account of a communication made to the Institute by the late Professor 
Lawson, on the 11th December, 1893, and never completely elaborated, has been found 
among his manuscripts. Though written for insertion in the Proceedings, it is printed 
here without change. 
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