Aquatic Plants of Saji Die^o. 12^ 



The mollusca are represented by about eight hundred and fifty 

 (850) species, comprising land, fluviatile, and marine shells. 



There are over five hundred specimens of minerals and fossils, 

 eighty-one mounted birds of this region, besides a large miscella- 

 neous collection. 



The present membership is forty five. Of these but few are 

 active members, not over half a dozen pursuing any special branch 

 of study; consequently, the original papers that have been written 

 are not numerous. 



This region presents a wide and comparatively undeveloped 

 field for research, but the laborers are few. 



Although some good work has been done in various depart- 

 ments of natural history, work that has been rewarded by new dis- 

 coveries, much more might be done, if there were workers in the 

 field who had the time and inclination to accomplish it It is to 

 be hoped that the next decade will be more fruitful in results. 



Mrs. R. F. Bingham^ 



Santa Barbara, Cal., February, 1887. 



AQUATIC PLANTS OF THE VICINITY OF 

 SAN DIEGO. 



The flora of the Pacific Coast is largely composed of plants be- 

 longing to families and genera that are mainly confined to it, and 

 to the adjacent Mexican region. In the higher mountains and 

 along our water-courses, may be found a goodly number of species 

 that represent eastern and New England plants — in many cases 

 identical with them, which would lead us to suppose that whatever 

 aquat.'c plants we found, would even more nearly approach in 

 genera and species, those of the eastern states. 



While terrestrial plants are naturally much more limited in the 

 range of their distribution than aquatic species, they more truth- 

 fully show the characteristics of the flora of a region; but, on the 

 other hand, the distribution of the water plants may be studied 

 for the purpose of more easily learning the relations between the 

 floras of different regions, as more nearly showing their common 

 origin. 



This view may not be wholly correct, or sure of leading the in- 

 vestigator to results at all reliable. I have before called attention 

 to the peculiar terrestrial molluscous fauna of California, which 

 may be divided into two classes: those peculiarly Californian form- 

 ing the one, while those of the eastern or circumboreal distribution 

 forming the other, the latter corresponding to the representation 

 of eastern species, in our flora, along our water courses and in 

 the mountains. All, or nearly all, of our fresh water mollusks, we 

 find to be of very wide distribution in the United States, several of 

 the few species extending over nearly the whole of North America. 



