ATS TS ks ae ma 
1905 | BOTANICAL BRANCH. 125 
If you wish to see Canadian wild flowers, you must go to our 
woods or along our streams, where you will find many beautiful 
species quite unknown to you.” 
The fact that practically all the weeds seen growing in vacant 
lots, along roadsides, in cultivated and uncultivated fields in On- 
tario and some of the other provinces, are introduced species, is 
known to botanists ; but the reason why these introduced plants 
should become weeds and our own should not, is not, we think, 
so generally known or thought of. 
At a meeting of the Botanical Branch of the Ottawa Field- 
Naturalists’ Club held last winter, Prof. John Macoun explained 
the matter to everyone’s satisfaction. Ontario and other parts 
of Canada were heavily wooded before the settler came and the 
native plants grew in the woocs, along the rivers’ banks or in the 
marshes. When the woods were cleared away, the conditions 
were not favorable to the woodland species and they disappeared; 
but in their stead are found the weeds introduced from Great 
Britain and Europe, where for centuries they have been 
growing in field, in hedgerow, and along the roadside. These, 
finding suitable conditions, have multiplied with great rapidity in 
Canada. 
It would be an interesting study for the botanists of the 
Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club to determine how many, and 
which, of the bad weeds of Canada are native. The list would, 
we know, be found very small. 
BOTANICAL BRANCH. 
A regular meeting of the Botanical Club was held at Mr. R. 
*B. Whyte’s, on March 10th. Mr. Whyte gave a brief account of 
a recent visit to the New York Botanical Garden at Bronx Park, 
New York. He was much impressed by the extent of the collec- 
tion of plants, and the great size and luxuriant growth of the 
palms, most of which were grown in large boxes, about five feet 
square. Asan instance, he mentioned a Banana in fruit twenty- 
two months old, that was twenty-two feet high, with leaves four- 
teen feet long. A very large collection of Cacti was also referred 
to, and the information obtained from the horticulturist, that 
