GEOGRAPHIC AFFINITIES 
223 
US to assume that a novelty found, let us say, in Alberta, must in- 
evitably be an undescribed species, quite overlooking the fact that the 
identical species may have been already described from Siberia or 
from Newfoundland. Sound taxonomic work, therefore, demands a 
broader and more accurate insight into phytogeographic laws, and it is 
with the hope that by mutual comparisons we may come to a clearer 
understanding of the relationships of our complex floras that I look 
with special satisfaction upon the formation of this new section of the 
Botanical Society. From this long peroration you will see that I have 
a double motive in presenting for your consideration some of the more 
patent facts brought out in studying the geographic affinities of the 
flora with which I am most familiar. 
As I have already said, the area I am sketching consists of approxi- 
mately 200,000 square miles of land, ranging in character from the 
most arable farm-lands of the Aroostook, Connecticut and Champlain 
Valleys to sandy wastes, Hudsonian tundra, subalpine forests, saline 
marshes, granitic rockfields, limestone barrens and seacliffs, and 
arid canons. These and scores of other distinct habitats make up a 
region in many parts quite unexplored and unmapped, but with a 
phenomenally extensive indigenous flora. The area covered by Coul- 
ter and Nelson's Rocky Mountain Flora, from northern Arizona and 
New Mexico to the Black Hills, Montana and southern Idaho, includes 
about 480,000 square miles and has, as recognized in that work, an 
indigenous flora of 2,836 species and geographic varieties. Our 
northeastern region, with an area of 200,000 square miles, less than half 
Coulter and Nelson's area, has a known indigenous flora as extensive 
as theirs, more than 2,800 species and varieties; and of these more 
than 250 are strictly endemic while an additional 50 overstep the 
bounds of the region only by occurring on Long Island, the Adiron- 
dacks, or in southern Labrador. This endemic or essentially endemic 
element, making altogether more than 10 percent of the flora, is well 
illustrated by Rosa nitida (fig. i) of the acid bogs from Newfoundland 
to eastern Connecticut. 
Most conspicuous to the casual observer are, of course, the com- 
mon trees, shrubs and widely dispersed herbs. These, for the most 
part, are species of broad and continuous range throughout the AUe- 
ghenian, Canadian or Hudsonian districts, and often beyond. Typi- 
cal illustrations of these common and widespread species are the 
native red currant, Rihes triste, and the balsam fir, Abies balsamea, of 
