Introduction, 



Limits of the Flora and its Physical Characters. 



This catalogue professes to include all the flowering plants, so far 

 as observed, growing without cultivation in the territory drained by 

 Cayuga Lake, its tributary brooks and creeks. It also includes the 

 plants of the water-shed marshes and ponds lying between our hydro- 

 graphic system and the neighboring ones, — besides the altogether in- 

 dependent, outlying and exceedingly interesting little water-system 

 of the West Junius ponds. The latter, an important addition to our 

 illustrative resources, belongs as much to our system as to any of the 

 smaller ones, and is therefore combined with it in this work. The 

 water-shed marshes and ponds sometimes drain into the Caj-uga sys- 

 tem as in the case of Locke Pond, Dryden Lake, the Round Marshes, 

 the White Church and Brookton Springs ; sometimes away from it, as 

 in the case of Cayuta Lake, Michigan Hollow Swamp and the Fir- 

 Tree Swamp in Danby, and the larger Marl Ponds in South Cortland. 

 There is an outflow in freshet seasons only, from Summit Marsh, and 

 from Freeville bog and the Fir-Tree Swamp at Freeville, and then 

 into other streams than ours, while the pond and marsh near Chica- 

 go Station, also several of the Marl Ponds have no apparent outlet. 



The greatest length of this territory is about sixty-five miles, ex- 

 tending southward from Montezuma, on the Erie canal, to Summit 

 Marsh, in the northern part of Tioga County. Its average breadth 

 could be considered about eighteen miles. Its least breadth, near the 

 northern marshes, is onl} r from four to six miles. From this region 

 the basin gradually widens till near the vicinity of Ithaca it suddenly 

 expands, becoming on the line of its greatest breadth about thirty- 

 two miles. This line extends from Cayuta Lake on the southwest, 

 through Ithaca to the Marl Ponds on the northeast. In this part of 

 the Cayuga basin occur the larger streams, such as Fall Creek, Casca- 

 dilla, Six Mile and Neguaena Creeks, all entering the "Inlet "and 

 the south end of the lake in a group. The only rival streams are 

 Salmon Creek and Taughannock Creek, entering the lake about ten 

 miles from the southern end. All of these streams flow through pre- 

 glacial valleys, the larger of which their slender currents have altered 

 but little from the ancient form. Of this part of the basin, Ithaca is 

 the central point, and its county (Tompkins), is wholly within our 

 limits. Considerable portions of Cayuga Co., on the eastern shore, 

 and of Seneca Co., on the western shore of Cayuga Lake, and small 

 fractions of Schuyler, Tioga and Cortland, also fall within this basin. 



