

Claiborne, Webster, Bienville, Red River and Natchitoches. As I 

 travelled in a carriage, I had an opportunity of observing, not only 

 the botanical character and the agricultural capabilities of that part 

 of Louisiana, but also its geological features; and I have endeavored 

 to supply, by my labor, botanical specimens for the herbarium, as 

 well as geological specimens for the cabinet. 



The botanical excursion of this summer nearly exhausts the sum- 

 mer vegetation of this State. It is true that a number of new spe- 

 cimens might occasionally be found in various parts of Lousiana 

 during the months of July and August, for no collector can visit 

 every locality where some rare specimen may not sometimes be met 

 with, but such chance specimens would not justify the labor and 

 expense of an excursion for collecting purposes. 



If it is intended that the botanical survey shall be continued for 

 another year, the collections must be made during the months of 

 April, May and June, and some new specimens might be collected as 

 late as the month of October. But no great harvest of supplies 

 could be expected at any time, as the range of the collector is ne- 

 cessarily limited, no matter in what direction he may start out on 

 his excursions. 



To collect the entire flora of Louisiana, including flower-bearing 

 and non-flower-bearing plants, would require many years and nu- 

 merous assistants and contributors in every parish of the State. No 

 single botanist could alone accomplish this object. The university 

 herbarium comprises about two-thirds of all the flower-bearing 

 plants that grow in Louisiana ; but the cryptogam ous flora, which 

 ecnstitutes the most difficult branch of botanical science, is far from 

 being as fall as the phrenogamous, and especially the classes of 

 fungi and algae, the number of which exceeds perhaps that of all 

 others, are but partially represented on account of the difficulty of 

 preserving them, and the still greater difficulty of studying them ; 

 for they are mostly miscroscopic plants, and are not described, as 

 a class, in any standard botanical work which might be nsed for 

 convenient reference. 



The botanical collections already made comprising about fifteen 

 hundred specimens, and belonging to every class of which the veg- 

 etable kingdom is composed, have been arranged and classified in 

 scientific order, and no specimen of plant, however attractive, has 



