I02 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



ORIGIN AND RIXATIONSHIP O? THE COASTAL PI^AIN ^LORA 01^ 



NEW JERSEY. 



The aim of the present work is to present facts rather than to 

 advance theories, as it is the opinion of the writer that deductions 

 as to the origin and relationship of our flora can be more accu- 

 rately drawn when we have carefully prepared lists covering the 

 more southern sections of the coastal plain, for comparison. 

 Certain ideas, however, have suggested themselves as the collec- 

 tion of data has progressed, which it may not be out of place to 

 present. 



In the first place, in regard to the distribution of plants in 

 general, the writer was under the impression that plants were 

 subject to so many irregularities that, except the trees and some 

 shrubs, they did not accord very satisfactorily with the life zones 

 as based upon the distribution of birds and mammals. This idea, 

 however, proves to be wrong, as, with the exception of weeds, 

 plants, down to the smaller herbs, seem to accord with remarkable 

 accuracy to natural zones and areas, where the influence of man 

 has not disturbed nature's equilibrium. We find certain species 

 following the austral zones in the east up to the northern ex- 

 tremity of the coastal plain and pushing up the Mississippi valley, 

 just as do the birds and mammals. This point is entii'ely lost in 

 the brief statements of range given in the manuals. A plant of 

 austral afifinities may have a range similar to the above, reaching * 

 Massachusetts and Minnesota at the northernmost points of its 

 range in the east and west respectively. The manuals. will give 

 its distribution as Massachusetts to Minnesota south to Florida, 

 although it is absent from nearly half of that area, and in Penn- 

 sylvania, for instance, occurs only in the Delaware and Ohio 

 valleys at the eastern and western extremeties of the State. The 

 meagreness of accurate data of this sort is a serious hindrance 

 to the study of the geographic distribution of our plants. 



The irregularities in the distribution of plants — that is to say, 

 the departure from the boundaries of the life zones, is apparently 

 largely due to the local nature of a plant as opposed to the free- 

 ranging animal. Seeds washed down a river may germinate far 



