72 
(B^tllet^n of the Jfatural History Society. 
ARTICLE III. 
DOES OUR INDIGENOUS FLORA GIVE EVIDENCE 
OF A RECENT CHANGE OF CLIMATE ? 
BY J. VROOM, ST. STEPHEN, N. B. 
The flora of New Brunswick is too little known, as yet, to 
warrant any attempt at giving a deflnite answer to the ques- 
tion. What follows is only suggested as a possible inference 
from some of the most striking features in the different floral 
regions of the province. 
The plants of what we now call our indigenous flora have 
probably come to us from various directions and at different 
times. To trace the journeyings of any one species is, of 
course, impossible. We can only ask whether our sub-arctic 
plants have lingered here since the glaciers receded, or have 
once passed on in their northern migrations and been again 
driven southward to replace less hardy species; and whether 
a general movement in either direction is now going on. 
A general movement of plants towards the equator is one 
of the acknowledged facts of geographical botany. The late 
Prof. Gray has also noticed that plants tend to move from 
east to west rather than from west to east. These movements 
would be almost infinitely slow — their rate not to be measured 
by years or by centuries, but rather by geological divisions of 
time — and the word recent must be understood accordingly. 
Reasoning from the laws above stated, an unchanging climate 
here, throughout such an extensive period, should have made 
continental Acadia, from its geographical position, a centre 
of distribution for the plants of the New England States. 
The same would be the case, and more noticeably so, if an 
