890 General Notes. | December, 
smooth and graceful contours. Whether the results secured 
were at all proportionate to the time and money expended, is one 
of those public problems whose solution is best referred to the 
professional politician. Certainly one result, not aimed at, was to 
introduce into the square an army of plants whose luxuriant and 
rapid growth soon covered it with a mantle of waving weeds 
Curious to ascertain how many plants flourished upon this limited 
and forbidding area, the author, at such times as he was at liberty 
to collect them, began a systematic search over it, and although 
conscious that want of time interfered with its completeness, yet 
its extent has caused some surprise, ee may prove of interest to 
a wider circle of students and collector 
It may be premised. for the sifoFinition of those to whom Man- 
hattan Square, in New York city, is a zerra incognita, that the 
immediate district about it is a representative purlieu of a great 
city, where clusters of shanties alternate with half-finished blocks 
of handsome houses or stores, the whole a transition phase to a 
larger and denser population. Not twenty blocks away the 
shall pelr or e it, be extermina te he semi- 
alluvial bottoms of some of the pit-like depressions, and the fer- 
tile blanket of soil lying over the low swells of rock in the neigh- 
borhood, have been appropriated by squatters for kitchen gardens, 
and assume in summer an almost rural aspect. The following is 
a catalogue of the plants collected in Manhattan Square, New 
York city, in the summer of 1880 
Ranunculacee. 
Ranunculus acris. 
Crucifere. 
Sisymbrium officinale, Capsella son a 
canescens, Lepidium virginic 
Brassica nigra, 
Hyperi 
ricum eet 
Caryophyllacee. 
sted (A. Woodw wisrad. I paean, Stellaria media 
octiflora, one specim Mollugo verticillata. 
ae 
roe gerne) 
Malvacee. 
Malva rotundifolia, Abutilon avicennz. 
: ` Geraniacee. 
Geranium carolinianum, Oxalis stricta. 
Impatiens fulva, 
Simarubacea. — 
Ailanthus glandulosus. 
: ; Anacardiacee. 
_ Rhus glabra, Rhus toxicodendron. 
zy Vitacee, 
Ampelopsis quinquefolia. 
