Plants of Europe naturalized in the United States. 149 



equally easy to account for the circumstance, that other Euro- 

 pean plants, which, from a parity of circumstances in their 

 native country, should have likewise been introduced by the 

 same means, are not at all to be met with ; or at least so rarely, 

 and in such confined localities, that they are readily recognised 

 as strangers by the most inexperienced. Not one of the 

 common grain kinds, wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, &c. 

 has spread through the country, so as to deserve to be consi- 

 dered as naturalized in the sense here intended. Of the nume- 

 rous segetal plants which are met with in every field of Europe, 

 and of the flowers and herbs which grow intermingled with the 

 cultivated grasses of pastures and meadow grounds there, but 

 a very small proportion seem to participate in that facility of 

 emigration, and that readiness to usurp the soil of a new country 

 which signalizes a few equally with the human inhabitants. To 

 judge by the effects produced by these few, it is well that it is 

 so ; otherwise our native vegetation would have been swept 

 from the scene, as has been the human race of aborigines, toge- 

 ther with no small portion of the quadrupeds ; especially as it is 

 a well known fact, that the number of our native herbaceous 

 plants of a decidedly gregarious growth, i, e. exclusively occu- 

 pying larger tracts, is but inconsiderable ; in consequence of 

 which our native plants would have stood as little chance of 

 maintaining their ground against a phalanx of vegetable colonists 

 from Europe, as our straggling aborigines did against the 

 columns of emigrants from that part of the world, were these 

 vegetable colonists as prone to establish themselves. In the 

 mean time, it is not without interest to note those few which 

 form an exception, and which have followed the steps of culti- 

 vated man, nay, in some cases, have even preceded him into 

 the wilderness. 



I propose to communicate a list of all those which have any 

 just claim to be considered as naturalized, i. e. which are 

 regularly reproduced, and gradually extending themselves, 

 without present cultivation, under certain general heads, and to 

 subjoin such remarks as I have had an opportunity to make. 





