ALABAMA FLORA AND EUROPEAN FLORA. 



EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION. 



The relationship between the flora of Alabama and that of Europe 

 and the parts of Asia and Africa bordering upon the Mediterranean 

 Sea is indicated by their having in common about 100 families with 

 about 230 genera, this being nearly 35 per cent of the genera indig- 

 enous to Alabama, with 55 species which occur in Alabama and also 

 in western Europe and in the Mediterranean region, chiefly the former. 

 Of the arboreal plant formation nearly all of our deciduous catkin- 

 bearing trees and most of the shrubs are represented by closely allied 

 species in those regions. Some of these genera are represented far to 

 the north in the European-Asiatic forest belt, such as willow, cotton- 

 wood (Populus), birch and alder, and pine, while walnut, beech, oak, 

 hornbeam, hazelnut, ash, maple, plum and cherry, pear and apple, and 

 the savin are widely diffused over the more temperate regions of 

 Europe. In the Mediterranean region our white cedar (Charnaecy- 

 paris) fiifds itself represented in the cypress (Cupressus), from which 

 it differs b}^ a mere technical character, and Celtis (hackberry), Cercis, 

 and Storax are represented in the same region. It is a remarkable fact 

 that in no one of these genera is the European species identical with that 

 found in Alabama. The ferns and allied families are represented by 



4 families with 12 genera; of these 7 belong to the ferns proper with 



5 identical species, 2 to the Ophioglossaceae, 1 to the Lycopodiaceae, 

 1 to the Selaginellaceae, and 1 to the Equisetaceae. 



The following table exhibits the relation of these two floras: 



Genera and species common to Alabama and Europe, with Mediterranean Asia and Africa. 



1 Including Polypodiaceae, Hymenophyllaceae, 



and Osmundaceae. 



2 Including Potamogeton, 5 species. 



3 Here used in the broader sense. 



"Tillaea. 



6 Drosera. 



