Stout—Vegetation of a Typical Wild Hay Meadow. 419 
Considering this table solely from the standpoint of abun¬ 
dance it is plain that the bulk of the vegetation belongs to a few 
species. This is more graphically shown by Plate XVIII which 
shows diagramatically the relative proportions of the fifteen 
leading species. It is noticeable that all but three of the fif¬ 
teen leading species are sedges or grasses and it can be said that 
these three do not rank as dominants anywhere in the transect. 
To make the summary more exact as to the nature of the vege¬ 
tation the following table showing the percentages for the lead¬ 
ing species may be arranged. 
Table 3. 
Total population of transect. 52,377 
Total Carex species. 33,989 or 63% 
Total grasses. 12,698 or 24% 
Total Carices and grasses. 87% 
Total Carex stricta. 21,127 or 40% 
Total Calamagrostis canadensis. S,765 or 18% 
Total for these two species. 58% 
The nature of the plant population and the quality of the 
product of the marsh in hay is easily understood from the fig¬ 
ures. The great excess of sedges over grasses (sixty-three per 
cent to twenty-four per cent) and the high percentage (forty 
per cent) of the rank growing Carex stricta indicates that the 
hay value will be largely determined by the sedges. As far as 
the grasses are concerned the value is almost wholly due to the 
eighteen per cent Calamagrotis canadensis since the total of 
the remaining grasses (six per cent) is small. 
Por the purposes of a comparison of the families of chief 
importance numerically, the data may be grouped as follows: 
Table 4. 
No. of 
species. 
Total In¬ 
dividuals. 
Cyperaceae. 
13 
34,024 
12,698 
2,838 
314 
Gramineae. 
11 
Labiatae. 
5 
Violaceae... 
2 
Polypodiaceae. 
1 
222 
Compositae. 
9 
191 
Ranunculaceae. . 
2 
98 
Alismaceae. 
1 
98 
Campanulaceae... 
1 
82 
Saxifragaceae. 
1 
81 
