3o 
Bulletin of the Natural History Society. 
ARTICLE III. 
REPORT OF THE BOTANICAL SECTION. 
T HE Committee on Botany has to report excellent results from 
those engaged in the investigation of plants in the Province 
for the past year. Not only has the range of rare and local plants 
been extended, but in addition sixty species and varieties, not 
hitherto known to exist in the Province, have been added to its 
flora. 
The value of the Herbarium has been largely increased by a 
gift from Mr. G. F. Matthew, who has presented to the Society 
his entire collection of plants, consisting of over two thousand 
species, chiefly European. These, with the excellent collection of 
New Brunswick plants already at our disposal, will make the 
society’s herbarium a valuable one to the student of botany. 
The publication of a systematic catalogue of Canadian plants has 
been commenced by Prof. Macoun, of which Part I. — Polypetalae, 
has appeared. This will prove especially useful to the Canadian 
botanist, referring him to forms that are unsettled, and which 
require special attention. Of the 243 genera of the Polypetalae, 
described in Macoun’s List, 128, or a little more than half, occur 
in New Brunswick ; and of the 907 species, 263, or nearly a third, 
are found in this Province. It is desirable that a revised list of 
the plants of New Brunswick should be published at the close of 
the season of 1884. The additions to our flora since the publica- 
tion of Fowler’s List in 1878 (about 150 species of Phanerogams), 
and the mass of information accumulating since on the distribution 
of rare and local species, render a new catalogue almost indis- 
pensable. The botanists at work in the Province would gratefully 
extend to Prof. Fowler all the assistance in their power towards 
publishing a revised and more complete catalogue of New Bruns- 
wick plants. 
Scarcely a beginning has been made here, as yet, in the study 
of many important groups of plants — such as ihe Fungi and their 
