
6 THE BOTANY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 
natural meadows is of almost unparalleled fertility, and its 
vegetation is always abundant and of luxuriant growth, the 
number of species is small. While many of the natural 
families of plants are wholly wanting, and other large ones 
but feebly represented, two or three elt the most part clothe 
the prairies. These are the Composite, the Cyperaces and 
the Graminee ; or, to use plain English, the compound flow- 
ers, the sedges and the grasses. 
Let us take a glance at our prairie herbal and notice some 
of the blanks. First, we find the whole order of the Ra- 
nunculacee represented only by Anemone Pensylvanica and 
A. cylindrica, if we except Ranunculus Purshii, an aquatic 
rarely found in ponds on low prairies. Of the pretty family 
of violets we find only Viola cucullata, and that only occa- 
sionally in the low moist places. Passing to the heath tribe 
(Ericaeæ), one of the most delightful natural orders in all 
our North American flora, we find not one growing on the 
prairies of Illinois. And even if we leave the prairie and 
search the woods and river bluffs ever so — we still 
find none. 
The Indian Pipestem (Monotropa uniflora) will be found 
rarely in low woods, and is the only species of the order 
which the writer has observed during two years of botanical 
research in this section of the country. 
There is another still more interesting family,the Orchids. 
Of these only three are found on the prairies, namely : the 
White-flowered Ladies’ Slipper (Cypripedium candidum), a 
Spiranthes of doubtful species, and the so-called Prairie 
Orchis (Platanthera leucophea). Why the last mentioned 
plant has received the popular name of Prairie Orchis we can- 
not conjecture, for it looks, when growing on the prairie, 
like a half starved and homesick foreigner to one who 
has seen its luxuriant growth by hundreds in the tamarack 
marshes of Wisconsin. 
“Well,” says some New England friend, “your Illinois 
prairie must be a rather dry field for a botanist in May or 

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