I have taken the liberty, without previous consultation, to name a 

 new species of Jussiiea, " Jussirea Boydiana," as a well merited com- 

 pliment to you, the superintendent of the University, for your 

 valuable services, and for the efforts made by you in behalf of the 

 botanical survey of the State. 



CONCLUSION. 



Although the list of plants collected within the last twelve months is 

 quite extensive, yet it must not be supposed that, within such a short 

 period of time, I could have collected the greatest number of plants 

 which grow in the State of Louisiana. With the exception of eleven 

 new specimens contributed by R. S. Jackson, Esq., for which he has 

 our thanks, the whole collection has been made by myself personally, 

 and the labor of manipulating the specimens, to prepare them for 

 preservation, has exclusively devolved upon me. Even if the col- 

 lector could be at different places at the same time, which the 

 accomplishment of such a work, within a given period, would 

 require, it would be impossible to dry and prepare, determine and 

 classify all the plants of Louisiana in a single year. We have com- 

 paratively few -of the spring and late fail flowers, and these are the 

 seasons when a great number of plants produce their blossoms, and 

 though the number collected will not be much less than one thou- 

 sand specimens, which have been classified and determined, yet this 

 probably constitutes not more than one-third or one-fourth of the 

 aggregate vegetable productions that grow on Louisiana soil or in 

 Louisiana waters. It would require many years to visit the various 

 localities where the cryptogamous plants flourish best, and, in a 

 scientific point of view, they present a far higher interest than the 

 flower-bearing plants. The trees of Louisiana are of the highest 

 importance, and a whole year might be profitably devoted to their 

 study. A description of the productions of the forest, with the 

 history which each species of tree has in the traditions of the 

 aborigines, who were botanists in their way, as well as the traditions 

 of the early settlers and country people in connection with particular 

 trees, a systematic investigation of the quality of the wood each 

 kind of tree is composed of, its mechanical, economic and artistic 

 uses, would furnish the most interesting as well as the most useful 

 compilation the botanist could engage in. To accomplish this 



