SHORT NOTES 387 
wanted facts and was only thinking of them, and thanks to this 
Journal I have obtained them. I have never used the word 
we ha 
ing, &c. Hztra s 
help on the part of man, survive in a limited local environment. 
y “conscious help” I imply that when the husbandman 
It must be left to Mr. and Mrs. Clement Reid, and I trust their 
many followers, to settle the question whether A. arvensis is 
‘native, z.e., aboriginal or introduced without the direct or indirect 
agency of man,” to use Mr. G. C. Druce’s explicit definition. The 
past history of plants in these islands is one study, their present 
position under modern conditions quite another. Purposely to 
exclude the past I invented the ugly terms areal, local areal, and 
extra-areal. 
I wish to be perfectly candid. I see no reason why A. arvensis 
should not have reached these shores before man did, or by some 
other means than as his follower. I have absolute proof that it is 
(1) wind-, (2) water-, and (3) bird-carried to-day. The chances, I 
a follower of man. Mr. Reid told me some time ago by letter 
that few desert-prairie species have yet been discovered; but our 
plants into two lists: (1) followers of man, and (2) shunners of 
man. There can be no doubt in which list this species comes. 
workers are surrounded by “human conditions” to our very 
mountain tops, thanks to our flocks and fed deer; is it not wiser 
then to leave the citizenship of our plants to the geo-botanists ? 
It is only a question of time; they will settle the matter definitely 
some day; as field workers we can only fall back on the result of 
the aggregate of cases under modern conditions, on the percentage 
of accumulated experience. We always do so in ordinary cases; 
why not in this case 
For instance, Mr. Druce’s reference to Scleranthus annuus is 
most valuable, and very much to the point as regards conclusions 
drawn from averages. The matter he refers to is one I have been 
