oe 
Olay pole, ] 226 [May 18, 
Note on a relic of the Native Flora of PennsyWwania, surviving in Perry 
County. By H. W. Claypote. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, May 18, 1883.) 
One of the inevitable, but, to the biologist, deplorable consequences of 
the spread of cultivation, is the extinction of many of the native or wild 
species of plants and animals. Could we have complete catalogues of the 
original flora and fauna of any country where nature has been long and 
entirely subjected to man, we should find many a name which would to 
us represent no existing being. It would be the name of a member of the 
aboriginal races which had proved unable, essentially or accidentally, to 
maintain its ground in the changed circumstances against its former com- 
panions, and had consequently died in the struggle. Orit might be, in 
the case of America, the name of one that, though able to hold its own 
against all its native competitors, failed in the contest with some of the 
new species introduced from more highly developed Europe, where for 
centuries the struggle has been more intense than here. In either case the 
result has been the same to the species—ultimate extinction. 
It is a notorious fact in geology and botany, that many animal and vege- * 
table species from the Old World have crossed the Atlantic in the traces 
of the white man, either as his friends or his foes, and have squatted on 
the lands of America, and made themselves as completely at home here 
asin Hurope, some of them much more so. Without entering into the 
subject at any length, it may suffice to mention among the former, the 
house fly, the honey bee, the brown rat, the cabbage butterfly, the Eng- 
lish sparrow, the currant and apple worm, the wheat midge, and, though 
some have disputed this, the Hessian fly. Among the latter may be 
named the white weed, the purslane, the carrot, the parsnip, the chicory, 
mullein, toadflax, catnip, &c., &c. All these have proved themselve; 
fully competent to hold their own against the native races of America, and 
even to conquer them by one means or another in the struggle for exist- 
ence, 
Cultivation, however, is a more deadly foe than competition to many of 
our native species. The axe and the plough change the conditions of life 
so suddenly and so greatly that many a plant and animal are deprived at 
once of both food and shelter. Confining our attention now to the former, 
the plants, we may notice two or three principal causes of the destruc- 
tion of some of our aboriginal species, r 
1. The loss of shade resulting from the destruction of timber. The 
plants of our woodlands and forests cannot all endure the brilliant, 
blazing sun that pours down upon them when the trees are felled. The 
direct heat seems fatal to many, The resulting drought destroys more. 
The moisture-loving ferns, without exception, dislike the sunshine, and 
though some of them, such as the common polypody, do not require much 
water, yet they shrivel and die when deprived of shade. It is not too 
