on Naturalist. 



Notes on The Flora of Western South Dakota.— The fol- 

 lowing paper was read before the Botanical Seminary of the University 

 of Nebraska by Professor T. A. Williams, of Brookings, S. D. 



The region west of the Missouri River may be divided into three 

 quite distinct botanical districts. The Range, The Black Hills, and 

 The Badlands. The first is much the largest, extending from the 

 River on the North and East to The Badlands on the South and the 

 Black Hills on the West. It is a broad stretch of prairie varying from 

 level tableland to rolling prairie or in many places becoming quite 

 rough and broken, especially along the streams which traverse the 

 region at varying intervals. The second region comprises the high- 

 land*, canons and mountains of the Black Hills country. The Badland 

 region begins near the Mouth of Indian Creek on the Cheyenne River 

 and extends southward skirting the Hills, reaching into Nebraska. 

 The strip of country varies from ten to about thirty miles wide. The 

 surface is very broken and the soil dry and sterile, excepting in some 

 of the basins where a little poor water is found giving life to some 

 vegetation. 



My visit to these regions was made in August of the past year 

 (1891). Not a very good time for collecting so far as the number of 

 specimens is concerned, but nevertheless a time when one can form a 

 fair idea of what the characteristic plants of the regions are. 



I shall not soon forget the impressions I received when, as we climbed 

 the bluffs out of the narrow valley of the River at Ft. Pierre, the wide 

 stretch of miles upon miles of dry prairie came to view. As far as the 

 eye could reach nothing could be seen but that peculiar monotonous 

 color of grass dried prematurely. Not a very inviting outlook for a 

 botanist. Along the bluffs of the River we had made several finds and 

 were beginning to hope that we should have a profitable trip, but at 

 the sight of that dreary waste of sunburnt prairie our hopes fell. 

 However our fears proved to be groundless, for as we soon learned 

 things are not always " what they seem." The creeks, which occur 

 here and there throughout the range, are veritable mines for the 

 botanist. Very few of them contain running water at this time of the 

 year. Usually they are nothing more than a chain of ponds, containing 

 from a few inches to a few feet of water. These streams are a continual 

 source of delight to the collector. They are usually separated a con- 



