114 [Assembly 



valuable observations on the plants of the Highlands of New-York ; to 

 Dr. Aiken, for specimens and remarks on the plants of the central 

 parts of the State ; to Prof. Eaton, the late Mr. H. H. Eaton, and Dr. 

 Wright, for information relating to the botany of Rensselaer county ; 

 to Drs. L. C. Beck and Eights, for rare plants of Albany county and 

 other parts of the State, and to Dr. Matthew Stevenson for a catalogue 

 of the plants of Washington county, as well as for many valuable spe- 

 cimens. Other friends whose names appear in the following pages 

 have rendered valuable assistance. 



Although so much has been accomplished towards the preparation of 

 a Flora of the State, it is not pretended that all the plants within our 

 limits are yet discovered. Many interesting districts have not been 

 visited, and even in those which have been most examined, new plants 

 are not unfrequently found. A considerable number of species are 

 extremely limited in their geographical range, and others disappear 

 soon after flowering, so that unless a district be visited several times in 

 a season, many plants may be overlooked. 



The State of New- York is an interesting botanical region. The ge- 

 ographical range of plants being limited by the characters of the soil 

 and rocks, as well as by temperature, and the geological features of the 

 State being greatly diversified, our Flora contains a considerable number 

 of genera and species that are not found in some of the neighboring 

 districts. The extended tertiary and alluvial formations of Long-Island, 

 afford many plants peculiar to this portion of the State, besides the 

 species that are confined to the immediate neighborhood of the sea. 

 Our primitive formal ion yields a great proportion of the species inha- 

 biting the New-England States. In the central and western counties 

 where transition-rocks abound, we find many plants of Ohio, Indiana, 

 and the country bordering Lake Superior, while on the lofty moun- 

 tains of Essex county a true alpine vegetation exists. 



The whole number of species indigenous and naturalized in our State, 

 including the lower orders of the cryptogamia, probably exceeds 2,400 

 species. It is however the phenogamous or flowering plants that have 

 chiefly occupied my attention, although I have not neglected the cryp- 

 togamia tribes with the exception of the fungi, which are so perishable 

 that few of them can be preserved for reference. Of phenogamous or 

 flowering plants 1,350 species have been found within the limits of the 

 State, and of ferns and plants allied to them, 53 species. The mosses 



