R E M A R K s 07i the Plants of Europe ivhich have become natu- 

 ralized in a more or less deg?-ee, in the United States. By 

 the late Lewis D. de Schweinitz. 



Read January, 1832. 



The fact, that a number of European plants have become 

 naturalized in the United States since the original forests have 

 yielded to cultivation, is generally known and perfectly natural. 

 Their number, however, especially of those which are so gene- 

 rally introduced that they would be considered indigenous, if 

 their foreign origin was unknown, is comparatively much 

 smaller than it would appear on a superficial view. With very 

 few exceptions they are, moreover, exclusively derived from 

 Great Britain and the north of Europe ; bearing testimony to 

 the fact, that this country received its culture of every descrip- 

 tion from thence ; notwithstanding the climate of a great por- 

 tion thereof would have favoured a similar vegetable coloniza- 

 tion from the southern parts of Europe as readily. 



The subject has, for some considerable time, attracted my 

 attention ; and presents some observations which, I think, are 

 not without interest to the naturalist. In every instance known 

 to me, it is very easy to account for the fact, that these plants 

 have been introduced. A respectable number have been pur- 

 posely brought hither to be cultivated, for the purposes of 

 agriculture, or for some real or fancied value they possess ; and 

 in consequence of their natural habit so to do, have more or less 

 spread in the country. Others have been evidently involuntarily 

 introduced with the imported seeds of agricultural plants, and 

 have arrogated to themselves the same place they occupy in 

 Europe, as weeds in fields and meadows, unwelcome as some 

 of them necessarily were. Others again have only straggled 

 from the gardens, and are met with exclusively in the vicinity 

 in which they are, or formerly were cultivated. But it is not 



