II. REMARKS ON SOME FEATURES OF THE KENTUCKY FLORA. 



BY THE LATE PROFESSOK GEORGE LAWSON, LL. D.,* 



of Dalhouixie College, Halifax, N. S. 



(Read December llth, 1893.) 



Having received a set of the extensive collection of plants 

 made in the south-eastern part of the State of Kentucky during 1 

 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 magnificent magnolias, of which three 

 species were shown, viz., Magnolia Fraseri, M. macrophylla, 

 with leaves a foot or more in length, and M. tripet<ila. These 

 are the remnants of a genus at one time wide.ly 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 seed<, 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 llth 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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