SCIENCE 



[Vol. XXII, No. 544 



SCIENCE; 



Published by N. D. C. HODGES, 874 Broadway, New York. 



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NOTES ON THE FLORA OF LONG ISLAND. 



BY SMITH ELY JBLLIFFE, M.D., BROOKLYN, N.Y. 



The flora of Long Island is one of fome degree of richness, 

 which upon a casual observation would seem to be a somewhat 

 anomalous statement, for it would appear that a sand waste a 

 few miles wide and about a hundred miles in length would 

 hardly be a place upon which a rich or abundant flora could 

 flourish. 



Long Island, so geologists tell us, is a portion of the terminal 

 moraine of the glacier that stretched across the country from 

 east to west ; traversing the entire length of the island there is a 

 rocky ledge, the so-called "back bone," from which the land 

 falls in more or less steep descents to the north, and in long 

 gradual slopes southward; the whole coast is rich in fresh and 

 salt water marshes, which are more pronounced upon the south- 

 ern coast. 



The earliest notices upon the subject are to found in a paper 

 published in 1807, entitled " Plantas Plandomensis," or a cata- 

 logue of the plants growing near Plandome, Queens County, by 

 Caspar Wistar Eddy. In 1835, J. R. Zabriskie published a "List 

 of Plants Growing near Erasmus Hall, Flatbush,'' and from 1843 

 to 1853 John Torrey M.D., in his publication on the '-Flora of 

 New York," included many Long Island plants. In 1874, E. S. 

 Miller and D. W. Young published their "Catalogue of the 

 Plants of Suffolk County," to which additions were made in the 

 Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. This journal also con- 

 tains many not^s upon the island flora. C. H. Peck, N. L. 

 Britton, A. H. Hollick, Geo. D. Hulst, VV. H. Rudkin, W. H. 

 Leggett, J. L. Zahriskie, Mrs. E. G. Britton, Mrs L. D. Py- 

 chouska, F. E. Tillinghast and others have contributed notes 

 from time to time upon new or interesting plants found on the 

 island. 



In round numbers about 1500 phaBnogamous plants have been 

 recorded; the work in the cryptogams has been scanty, yet the 

 writer has records of upwards of 750 species, which promises 

 much for the numerical value of this portion of the flora when 

 more completely studied. 



' It^ most characteri.iitic of the plants are found in the salt 

 tuar.=hes and along the sands of the sea coast, here are a number 

 of interesting grasses and sedges, including Fuirena squarrosa, 

 Heleocharis Robbinsii, rostellata and melanocarpa, Scirpus sub- 

 terminalis. Rhyncospora nitens, Calamagrostis Nuttalliana, Gly- 

 cenaspfluitan". Eragrostis pectinacea and others; the salt-loving 

 plants as RaiUjuuuius oymDalaiia, Leoheas, racemulosa, minor 

 and major ; fiuusonia tomentosus in quantities and H. ericoides, 

 though much rarer, Prunus maritlma and several of the more 

 common forms are constantly to be found at almost all points 

 along the southei-n shore. In the fresher marshes Spiranthes, 

 Habenaria, Calopogon and Pogonia. Cypripidiun and Goodyera 

 sre intermingled with rush and sedge and grass. 



Along the ridges and in the higher lands the Composites, Labi- 

 ates and Graminije are widely distributed, there seeming to be a 

 nearly equal distribution throughout the three counties. In 

 general, however, the plants found in Suffolk county are among 

 the most characteristic, there being there some fifty or sixty 

 plants that belong to the New Jersey pine barren flora and whose 

 presence is to be explained upon the geological grounds that this 

 eastern portion of the island was at one time a portion of the 

 Atlantic littoral plain. Among those plants found in Suffolk 

 county, some of which are also to be met with in Queen county, 

 there may be mentioned Camelina sativa, Reseda luteola, Drosera 

 longifolia and filiformis, Ascyrum stans and Crux andrete, Arena- 

 ria squarrosa, Polygala lutea, Quercus phellos, Cyperus dentatus 

 and Cupressus thyoides, as of more particular interest. Recent 

 investigations by Dr. A. H Hollick, of Columbia College, have 

 been directed to a better understanding of this portion of the 

 flora, and interested botanists are referred to his papers in the 

 Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences. 



The knowledge of the cryptogamic flora is still in its infancy. 

 The ferns are well known and comprise the majority of the com- 

 mon Aspleniums and Aspidiums with here and there a more or If ss 

 uncommon form, as Woodsia obtusa, Woodwardia angustifolia. 

 The Bryophytes are represented by over 100 species, and it i& 

 certain that twice that number will be found when the collectors 

 are more numerous and alert. Catharine a crispa is one of tb& 

 rarer plants that has been found. The list of lichens is far from 

 complete, 60 species are recorded and hardly a rock lichen 

 collected. The number of species of fungi is 250, also a new 

 field. The best known of the lower cryptogams are the marine 

 algee, they having been studied from the time of Professor 

 Bailey to the present. Bostrychia rivularis, Callithamnion dietz- 

 iae, which Professor Farlow, from a study of the original speci- 

 mens in the herbarium of the Long Island Historical Society, is 

 disposed to regard as a var. laxa of C. Baileyi, Callithamnion 

 tenue are a few of those interesting algse that are more or less 

 uncommon. The diatoms are represented by a list of 78 species, 

 which, with 45 species of fresh-water algte. completes the numer- 

 ical enumeration of the island's flora. Figures, however, are 

 totally inadequate to express the characteristics of the flora of 

 any region, however sparse it may be in vegetation, and it i& 

 hoped that in the near future a flora of Long Island will be in 

 sufficiently advanced condition to warrant its publicaiion, at 

 least the portion recording the distribution of the phsBno^amous 

 plants. 



CONSUMPTION AMONG THE COLORED PEOPLE OF THE 

 SOUTHERN STATES. 



BY G. W. HUBBARD, M.D., NASHVILLE, TENN. 



Probably no greater change in the social condition of a people 

 can be imagined than the transformation of a race from the state 

 of slavery to that of freedom. 



The colored people of the late slave-holding States ha^e now 

 been free for twenty-eight years; and their present condition irr 

 regard to health and mortality, as compared with that which 

 prevailed before their emancipation, is an interesting quostii n, 

 not only to the physician, but also to the philanthropist and the 

 student of social science. 



It is aluiost, if not quite, impossible to obtain reliable vital 

 statistics concerning the people of the Southern States outside the 

 larger cities and towns; and it is only within a few years that 

 even these have been complete and reliable. 



In this article I shall consider only one disea.se. phthisis pulmo- 

 nalis ; but it may be well to remark that the general dedth-rate 

 among the colored people in the southern cities, where statistics 

 are attainable, is nearly twice as great as that among the whites. 



I have made careful inquiries of many physicians who practised 

 in the South before the late ci\il war, and it has been their uni- 

 versal testimony that pulmonary consumption was a compara- 

 tively rare disease among the slave population, some even affirm- 

 ing that it was entirely unknown. It would probably be safe to 

 say that this disease was very much less frequent among the 

 negroes than among the white people. 



