41 



given in the Introduction; but a few additional remarks may be 

 added here. As compared with the flora of Northern Kansas, situ- 

 ated seven or eight degrees further south, the contrast is very great, 

 while the general features of the landscape, aside from the flora, of 

 the region east of the Yellowstone, and especially east of the Little 

 Missouri, are not essentially different from those of the prairies of 

 Middle Kansas. Gently rolling grassy prairies characterize both re- 

 gions, but while in Kansas the landscape, during early summer, is 

 everywhere varied with differently tinted patches of bright color, 

 from the abundance of the flowers, and from those of the same species 

 growing together in masses, in central Dakota we miss entirely this 

 effect, the flowers being not only far less numerous in species, but 

 those of a given species are so few as rarely to give their own tint to 

 extended portions of the landscape. Such social species, for instance, 

 as the Malvastrum coccineum, which on the Kansas prairies sometimes 

 covers acres with its bright flowers, almost to the exclusion of other 

 species, occurs here apparently only as a straggler, a few individuals 

 in a place, of small size, and never forming masses of color sufficient 

 to particularly attract the attention. The same is true of many other 

 species; the absence of this marked grouping of the brightly colored 

 species, resulting evidently from their paucity of representatives, be- 

 ing here as much a floral characteristic of these northern prairies as 

 the presence of this grouping is on the prairies of Kansas, Further 

 remarks on the distribution of particular species are incorporated 

 with the list. 



RANUNCULACE^E. 



1. Clematis ligusticifolia Nutt. Collected on the Yellow- 

 stone at the mouth of Big Porcupine Creek, August 8th. Noticed in 

 considerable abundance at other localities along the Yellowstone and 

 its tributaries. 



la. Clematis ligusticifolia var. (i. Collected with the pre- 

 ceding. 



2. Anemone patens var. Nuttalliana Gray. Wooded bot- 

 tom-lands of the Missouri at Fort Rice, June 15th. Abundant. 



3. Anemone Pennsylvaniea Linn. Abundant at Fort Rice, 

 with the preceding. 



4. Thalictrum Fendleri Eng. In moist wooded bottom- 

 lands at Fort Rice. Common. 



5. Ranunculus aquatilis var. heterophyllus D. C. 

 Crossing of the Big Muddy, July 1st. 



