aa ANNUAL REPORT. | 
plete list of our native vegetation. It is the embodiment not only of 
the labors of Dr. Lapham himself but also of all his predecessors, in 
studying the botany of Minnesota. Hundreds of local amateur botan- 
ists will scan its pages. It furnishes a platform from which to begin a 
careful search for other species, and to which, as a check-list, to re- 
fer future examinations. The issue of this catalogue, us here pub- 
lished, is actually the very first and most important step toward the 
exhaustive study and complete development of the botany of our 
State. By this means, when the State survey, ordered by the Leg- — 
islature of 1872, is ready for the enumeration and classification of 
our flora, a vast amount of information will be at hand, in the pos- 
session of the botanists of the State, stimulated and guided in their 
work by the systematic arrangement here presented. In this sense, 
then, it is a publication of the geological and natural history survey 
of the State, since it will redound largely to the progress of that 
work, to whose care Dr. Lapham at first confided it—N. H. W.] 
But very little definite information has yet been published in re- 
gard to the native vegetation of Minnesota. Mr. Thomas Say, the 
distinguished zoologist, and one of the founders of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, while connected with the expedi- 
tion of Maj. Long, collected a few plants which were examined by 
the late Lewis Von Schweinitz, and noticed in the narrative of that 
expedition. Prof. D. B. Douglass, of West Point, had previously 
brought home a few Minnesota plants which were placed in the hands 
of Dr. John Torrey, of New York, and noticed in Silliman’s Ameri- 
can Journal of Science for 1822; and Dr. Douglas Houghton, of 
Michigan, added quite a number to the list, on the return of the party 
that first visited Itasca lake, and discovered the true source of the 
Mississippi in 1832. In the reports of Nicollet and Owen lists are 
given of plants collected by persons connected with their surveys. 
All these lists have been consulted in the preparation of this cat- 
alogue, which, nevertheless, rests chiefly upon my own observations 
and collections made during several excursions into the State; one 
of which, in the spring of 1857, was extended to the waters of the 
Red River of the North. 
In 1858 Mr. Robert Kennicott made collections of plants and ani- 
mals in the Red River country which are preserved by the North- 
western University at Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Charles A. Hubbard 
collected expressly for me a large number of plants including mosses 
and lichens, while on a tour from Lake Superior to Lake Winnepeg and 
Pembina, as well as while on his return by way of St. Paul. In 1861 
Mr. T. J. Hale while prosecuting geological investigations along the 
Mississippi river in connection with the Wisconsin State survey. made 
some collections of plants in Minnesota, a list of which he has kindly 
furnished to me. Several species are introduced upon his authority. 
This catalogue suows that there are growing naturally in Minne- 
sota 48 forest trees, 77 species of the grass family, 133 compound 
flowering plants, 22 coniferous trees and shrubs, 38 kinds of pod- 
bearing (Leguminose) plants, 23 ferns, 56 mosses and lichens; and 
a total number of about 850 species. It is not to be supposed, how- 
ever, that this is a complete list of the plants of Minnesota; hun- 
dreds of species yet remain to reward the industry of future observers. 
