Introduction. 



Part I. History. 



The history of botanical exploration in Connecticut may be 

 said to begin near the end of the second decade of the last cen- 

 tury. Previous to this time we have no record of any botanical 

 activity within the state, and if any of the older botanists visited 

 Connecticut it must have been cursorily. 



The first resident of Connecticut whose work is of im- 

 portance seems to have been Dr. Eli Ives, who was born in 1779, 

 and was for many years professor of botany and materia medica 

 in Yale College. He was the author of the species Gnaphalium 

 decurrens, which was founded on specimens from New Haven 

 and from " the margin of the Housatonuck about 30 miles from 

 Long Island Sound. " He also described as a new species 

 Asclepias lanceolata from Cedar Hill, New Haven, which is the 

 plant now known as Acer ate s viridiflora ( Raf. ) Eaton, var. 

 lanceolata ( Ives ) Gray. Beside this he published notes on 

 Limosella, then recently discovered in America. These three 

 articles appeared in 1819 in the first volume of Silliman's Journal, 

 now known as The American Journal of Science. Twelve years 

 later he, in collaboration with Dr. William Tully and Dr. Melines 

 C. Leavenworth, published a " Catalogue of the Phaenogamous 

 Plants, and of the Ferns, growing without cultivation within 

 five miles of Yale College. " This is the earliest record of the 

 flora of this well-explored part of the state and contains the names 

 of 1 1 56 species. It was not, however, founded on specimens or 

 even on accurate records, and contains a few species which are 

 not otherwise reported from the state. The foregoing works 

 seem to have comprised the bulk of Dr. Ives' botanical publica- 

 tions and no specimens of his have been seen. 



About the time of the publication of Dr. Ives' earliest articles 

 John Pierce Brace must have been making the observations 



j,^ C. ^^^^^ ^'"^* 



