Notes on the Aquatic Phenogams of Iowa. 



By R. I. CRATTY. 



So large a proportion of our state is suitable for cultivation 

 that our native flora is being rapidly swept away, and while 

 most of the species may survive along roadsides, in hilly and 

 stony localities, and along streams, yet many which are rare 

 or local must eventually disappear entirely. Most of the land 

 too rolling for plowing is valuable for pasturage, and here the 

 destruction of the indigenous flora is nearly as rapid, the 

 introduced grasses, clovers, and weeds appropriating the 

 ground. While the marsh and aquatic plants have a better 

 chance in the struggle for existence than the prairie flora, yet 

 the draining of ponds and marshes, thus greatly restricting 

 the area frequented by such plants, is certain to sweep away 

 some species which were formerly quite common. Those 

 who have lived many years in the state, now see the former 

 haunts of muskrats and aquatic birds covered with waving 

 grain, and while from an economic point of view this change 

 may be desirable, yet to the naturalist it brings the conviction 

 that if we are to secure a full representation of what our 

 flora was, there is no time to lose. 



The following list of plants, all marsh or aquatic except our 

 two species of Arisama^ while probably not complete, is an 

 attempt to record in one paper a list of the species of the fol- 

 lowing orders found within our limits, giving as far as possible 

 the geographical distribution of each. Free use has been 

 mack- of Dr. Arthur's Flora of Iowa (1876), and of its several 

 additions, and of Prof. A. S. Hitchcock's Ames Florals pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of' the St. Louis Academy of Science* 



136 



