29 



NOTES ON THE FLORA OTTAWAEXSIS, WITH SPECIAL. 

 REFERENCE TO THE INTRODUCED PLANTS. 



James Fletcher. 



Read 20th December, 1883. 



My object in prejjaring these notes for the Club is chiefly to explain 

 certain points in the Flora Ottawaensis which might possibly be 

 misleading to non-resident botanists. 



In the drawing up of this list which was published in the first ])art 

 of the Transactions there were one or two important omissians. The 

 first of these was that there was no mention made of the limits of the 

 localit}' in which the plants were collected. There is, no doubt, much 

 room for differ-ence of opinion as to what the limits of " this locality " 

 should be, and it is possible that for useful work it would be better 

 not to tie down all the branches to the same area; for instance, the 

 extent of country which it is necessary for the Geologist to examine is 

 far greater than that required by the Botanist, in forming a general 

 idea of the Geology or Botany of a distx'ict, and the same may oe said 

 of the Ornithologist and Entomologist. It is not for me to make any 

 suggestions here as to what should be the limits of any branch; nor is 

 this a convenient time to discuss such a subject; but I will merely state 

 that " this locality," as far as the compilation of the list of plants was 

 concerned, has up to this time been undei-stood to mean a distance of 

 about 12 miles in any direction from the city, that is, about the dis- 

 tance a collector could travel on foot, when collecting, and return in one 

 day. The extreaie limits in different directions have included the 

 country lying between Meech's Lake, in the Chelsea Mountains, on one 

 side and the Mer Bleue on the other. Down the Ottawa river, East Tem- 

 pleton and Green's Creek have been included, and, up the river, Britannia, 

 and the islands above Aylmer. There is still a large amount of work to 

 be done in working up the countiy comprised within these limits. 

 Several districts have not been worked at all and others only visited 

 occasionally. 



Now, with regai'd to the list itself. A bare list of names gives no 

 idea at all of the prevalence of any species in a locality, and this is one 

 of the most important poijits the Botanist wants to know. Certain 

 plants which are very common in some localities may be very rare here- 



