ADVENTIVE AND FUGITIVE PLANTS. 55 
Arkansas valley, was first observed in Mobile in 1866. It has spread 
along the embankments of the railroads to the mouth of the Ohio 
River, literally covering in many places the waste and uncultivated 
grounds, and reaching out along byroads and borders of fields and 
woodlands. In its northward spread this plant has largely taken the 
place of the mayweed (Anthemis cotula), a European weed of early 
introduction. Acanthospermum australe, of the Antillean flora, has, 
during the past thirty years, made its way along roadsides from the 
coast of Georgia to western Florida and Alabama, and toward the banks 
of the Mississippi River. Asan example of a plant of more recent 
advent, which has gained a firm hold among the weeds and native 
plants of the waste heap, Melochia hifsuta deserves to be mentioned. 
First observed on recently turned soil at Mobile in 1875, and subse- 
quently lost sight of for a number of years, it is now found to infest 
cultivated and waste places widely in the Coast plain; and as it ripens 
its seeds in abundance throughout the summer this weed proves most 
troublesome and difficult to eradicate. 
Somewhat over forty species of udventive plants have been recog- 
nized in Alabama, fully one-half from Europe, and a small number 
from the warmer regions of the Old World; one-third from the West 
Indies and South America, and about one-sixth from the trans- 
Mississippi region. The following weeds, classed among the adventive 
plants, are most conspicuous by their abundance all over the State, 
or, at least, in some one of the recognized botanical regions: 
Leptochloa mucronata. Cassia tora. 
Hackelochloa granularis. Sida rhombifolia. 
Cyperus rotundus. Sida spinosa. 
Amaranthus retroflexus. Coronopus didymus. 
Amaranthus hybridus. Veronica peregrina. 
Amaranthus spinosiis. Veronica arvensis. 
Spergula arvensis. Lamium amplexicaule. 
Portulaca oleracea. Richardia scabra. 
Cassin occidentalis. 
FUGITIVE PLANTS. 
Under this designation are understood those immigrant plants which 
have not firmly established themselves upon our soil and are liable to 
succumb to the vicissitudes of climate and accidental changes in the 
locality of their growth. In some instances their disappearance is to 
be ascribed to the absence of the specialized insects necessary to their 
fertilization and also to the occurrence of early and late frosts. They 
are mostly introductions coming with the ballast of ships and, show- 
ing but a slight tendency to spread from the place where they were 
landed, are mostly confined to ballast heaps. One hundred and fifty- 
seven species of these fugitives have been observed in Alabama, 
mostly on ballast about the port of Mobile and on the shores of Mobile 
