THE ATLANTIC FOREST REGION 383 



number of plant species, however, which are characteristic of our pas- 

 tures and fallow fields, involves another point of view as to their 

 former distribution. 



The aboriginal flora of the Atlantic slope was unquestionably com- 

 posed of shade-loving species. Kalm, in a very interesting and suggest- 

 ive paragraph in his " Travels," noted this fact as early as the year 

 1748. Save along the river marshes and seacoast, or in widely scat- 

 tered glades and beaver meadows throughout the forest region, there 

 was little encouragement to the growth of meadow plants as we know 

 them to-day. A striking fact in the distribution of our eastern flora 

 is the comparatively large numbers of species that have found their 

 way across the ocean from the shores of Europe and have become 

 naturalized in our fields. These immigrants are for the most part 

 " weeds " which everywhere find congenial surroundings throughout 

 our cultivated lands, and like the human immigrants thrive apace. 

 They are rank growers of great fecundity and have gained an ill repu- 

 tation among the farmers. Some of them, as the big white daisy and 

 the buttercups, in out-of-the-way districts where the standard of farm- 

 ing is low, form the chief hay crop, and the daisy is said, by way of 

 extenuation, to possess milk-making qualities. The names of these 

 instruders are familiar to most of us, possibly more familiar to many 

 than those of native growth. Daisy, buttercup, toad-flax, mullein, 

 burdock, cockle-bur, dandelion, the common St. John's wort, self-heal, 

 lamb's quarters, field-sorrel, smartweed, and many more are among the 

 throng that early made a new home for themselves in the cleared land. 

 It is hardly likely that these same plants would have gained a foothold 

 had the land remained in its primitive forest-covered state, for they are 

 all light-loving species, thriving in the open expanse of fields. Many 

 indigenous species, as the Joe-Pye weeds or thoroughworts and the tick- 

 seeds and others of more or less moist habitats have undoubtedly 

 greatly increased their range since the days of settlement, spreading 

 out from river borders into the low meadow lands. One interesting 

 plant is unquestionably a rather recent migrant from the prairie coun- 

 try. This is the Black-eyed Susan or cone flower which has found its 

 way into eastern fields with clover seed brought from the west. 



Doubtless it was in some such manner that the host of European 

 species that now adorn this land found a means of transit, for much grass 

 seed and grain was brought over by the colonists. Nearly all the grasses 

 of our fields belong to European species that have become naturalized. 

 The native grasses appear, for the most part, to have been annual 

 species that grew in the woods, at least in certain districts. Kalm has 

 an interesting observation on this point. While staying with the 

 Swedes at their village on the Delaware in the autumn of 1748 one of 

 the old inhabitants told Kalm that in his youth " there was grass in 

 the woods which grew very close, and was everywhere two feet high," 



