- MEDICINAL PLANT; 



The whole number of flowering plants hitherto discovered in this 

 state, according to Prof. Torrey, is about 1450 species. Of these about 

 1200 are herbaceous, and 150 ornamental. We have 250 species of 

 woody plants, including eighty that attain the size of trees. There are 

 also about 150 species of plants that are known to possess medicinal 

 properties. Of exotics, now naturalized, we have 160 species, many 

 of which have probably been introduced with grain, and other agricul- 

 tural products, from abroad. Of such, are nearly all the *veeds which 

 prove so troublesome to the farmer. To the same source we are also 

 indebted for many of our useful species, as most of our different grasses, 

 which spring up spontaneously on every hand. 



Of Ferns we have about sixty species belonging to the Flora of the 

 state, some of which are medicinal. The Male Fern does not grow 

 within the limits of the state. Our SA dicerworts, Lichens, and 



Sea-weeds, have as yet been but very imperfectly investigated ; though 

 many of them would undoubtedly furnish valuable resources to the me- 

 dical man. When these have become more fully known, we shall no 

 longer send to Iceland, Ireland, and the East Indies, for mucilaginous 

 mosses, and other remedies of this class. Our Fungi are almost innu- 

 merable, constituting, probably, at least 3000 species, but few of which 

 have been ghly studied. Here is a wide field for such as wish 



to distinguish themselves by making discoveries in a terra incognita. 

 At present our knowledge scarcely suffices to enable us to distinguish 

 such as are poisonous from those which are edible and nutritious. 

 Where is the genius, which is to illustrate this dark region 1 Where 

 the man. whose name is to be connected with this branch of natural 

 science, in all future time 1 



It is not to be supposed, that the botany of this state is as yet fully 

 explored. A uirge majority of our phenogamous plants have undoubt- 

 edlv been discovered ; but yet we believe that numerous interesting 

 plants of this class yet remain undetected, besides thousands of the 

 cryptogamic order. The geological features of our state are greatly 

 diversified, and so is its range of temperature ; and the geographical 

 range of plants is as extensive, being governed by both these circum- 

 stances. Already we can number as many species as are found in the 

 whole of New England. But we have mountainous and alpine regions 

 in our state, elevated some 6000 feet above the ocean, which furnish 

 an alpine vegetation, and which yet remain almost unexplored. We 

 have many plants on our Atlantic borders, as Long Island, which are 

 found no where else in the state : and the same remark will apply to 

 the valley of the Hudson, and to our mountainous and western and 

 northern regions. We have many marine plants growing on the bor- 

 ders of our northern lakes, showing that their waters were formerly 

 saline. According to Dr. Torrey, our most numerous dicotyledonous 



