266 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATURAL, HISTORY. 



CANADIAN FLORA ; NEIGHBOURHOOD OF TORONTO, 



Having noticed several European plants naturalized in this country (introduced 

 no doubt with grass seed), which are not recorded by Dr. Gray in his valuable 

 manual, I am desirous of placing them on record, and I avail myself of the oppor- 

 tunity to offer a few general remarks on the Canadian Flora, and the state of our 

 knowledge respecting it. I shall confine myself at present to Phsenogamous 

 plants and ferns, with their allies. Mosses, Liverworts, Lichens, Algae, and 

 Fuci, are studied by a much more limited class, and our knowledge of the limits 

 of species is in a much less advanced state ; Ave will not, therefore, at present, 

 venture any opinion respecting them. 



Dr. Gray enumerates 2426 species of Phsenogaraous plants and ferns, as eon 

 stituting the Flora of the Northern United States, rejecting from this number the 

 Southern forms and the maritime plants, with all those which, from any cause 

 appear to be unknown in Canada about 1000 remain as constituting the Flora 

 of Canada, such as we may expect to find it. Some peculiar forms may be ex- 

 pected northward and eastward, but they can be supposed to make but a very 

 small n"umerical addition. 



I have kept a list of the plants found by me near Toronto, and in a few occa- 

 sional country excursions, and find the number recorded to be just under 600. 

 Here it is to be considered that, besides the comparatively small space examined, 

 there are several numerous families which have not yet been made a subject of 

 particular examination, and which could hardly fail to add another hundred 

 species. In the number of the Canadian Journal for April, 1854, is inserted a 

 list of indigenous plants found in the neighborhood of Hamilton, by Dr. Craigie 

 and Mr. "W". Craigie, which appears to be carefully drawn up, though as it seems 

 to note the results of one season's botanizing, there are of course many omissions. 

 This list contains 362 species, of which 15 are not found in my list. The great 

 difference is due partly to oversight, as the list is apparently only the result of 

 one year's botanizing, and partly to the circumstance that most trees and all 

 Cyperaceons and Graminaceous plants have been entirely omitted. 



A complete Flora of Canada cannot be expected for many years ; but it appears 

 to me that a tolerably correct and sufficiently useful list of the plants of Western 

 Canada might now be formed, and would include a little above 1000 species of 

 Phsenogamous plants and ferns. Even eonjecturally the limits may be marked 

 out with suflScient accuracy for practical use, and a few journeys at a favorable 

 season, or the opportunity of examining a few carefully formed local lists, would 

 now settle eveiything excepting a small number of doubtful species. 



Comparing our Flora with that of Great Britain we find we have both less' 

 variety upon the whole, fewer successive changes with the progress of the season 

 and less difference of districts. We have a few plants that are only to be found 

 in rocky districts, which are, of course, more limited in their range ; but excepting 

 these there is a remarkable conformity in the productions of the different parts of 

 our country. This, with the allowances required for mountain ranges and the 

 sea-coast, as well as for the gradual introduction, as we proceed southward, of new 

 forms, is found also in the Flora of the United States, and is characteristic of the 

 vast continent we inhabit. Our vernal Flora is one of great variety as well as 

 beauty and interest. We have only to regret that it is so transient. At other 



