70 BULLETIN OF THE 



only ones to which any special interest attaches and for the determ- 

 ination of which the present somewhat laborious analysis of this 

 ancient document has been undertaken. For these, the botanists of 

 our times should make diligent search and perchance a few of them 

 may still be found. Assuming that they no longer exist, they do 

 not represent the whole number of plauts that have disappeared 

 from our flora during the interval of fifty years. This could be 

 only on the assumption that the Prodromus was a complete record 

 of the flora at the time. This it certainly is not. The aggregate 

 number, exclusive. of synonyms or duplicated names, which it con- 

 tained was, as we saw, 860, which includes one cellular plant, viz : 

 Achara. We now identify, counting as was then done, species and 

 varieties, 1249 distinct vascular plants. While no doubt many of 

 these have been freshly appearing while others have been disappear- 

 ing, still, from the considerations above set forth, it is highly prob- 

 able that the indigenous flora of 1830 was considerably larger than 

 that of 1880, and may have reached 1400 or 1500 vascular plants. 

 It would appear, therefore, that only a little over half the plants 

 actually existing were discovered by the botanists of that day, and 

 enumerated in their catalogue. If the proportion of disappearances 

 could be assumed to be the same for species not discovered as for 

 those discovered by them, this would raise the aggregate number to 

 considerably above one hundred, and perhaps to one hundred and. 

 twenty-five. 



The great number of present known species not enumerated in 

 the Prodromus, some of them among our commonest plants and a- 

 mounting in the aggregate to 535 species, is another point of interest, 

 since, after due allowance has been made for mistakes in naming 

 them, it remains clear on the one hand that these researches must 

 have been, compared with recent ones, very superficial ; and on the 

 other, that, not to speak of fresh introductions, many plants now 

 common must have then been very rare, otherwise they would have 

 proved too obtrusive to be thus overlooked. 



Localities of Special Interest to the Botanist. 



The flora of a wild region is always more uniform than that of 

 one long subjected to human influences. The diversity in the former 

 is a natural consequence of the corresponding diversity in the sur- 

 face and other physical features. In the latter it is due to condi- 



