"^""rlb^'isso.^""  }  Migration  of  Plants  from  Europe  to  America. 
o 
of  the  problem  can  be  reached.  "  The  harvest  is  plenteous  but  the  laborers  are 
few." 
A  few  illustrations  will  show  the  kind  of  facts  to  which  this  paper  is  intended  to 
call  attention,  and  the  writer's  purpose  will  be  fully  served  if  its  perusal  should 
incite  any  who  are  familiar  with  European  botany  to  note  the  occurrence  of  Euro- 
pean species  in  different  localities,  and  especially  if  it  should  lead  any  to  inquire  as 
to  the  cause  which  prevents  the  naturalization  of  others  that  can  only  be  raised  here 
under  cultivation. 
The  careful  observer  will  notice  foreign  plants  in  all  stages  of  naturalization. 
Some  are  at  present  only  cultivated  in  fields  or  gardens,  others  have  escaped  from 
the  domain  of  the  plough  and  the  spade,  and  are  maintaining  a  precarious  existence 
among  conditions  not  altogether  congenial,  and  are  liable  to  extermination  at  any 
time,  by  an  unfavorable  season.  Others  have  a  stronger  hold  and  occupy  the  fence- 
corner  or  the  wayside,  while  a  number,  bolder  and  hardier,  have  emerged  from  these 
sheltering  nooks,  and  have  begun  an  independent  career  among  the  indigenous 
vegetation,  hoping,  often  in  vain,  to  hold  their  own  against  the  aborigines  of  the 
land.  Not  a  few,  more  hardy  still,  or  more  adaptable  in  their  nature,  have  altogether 
cut  themselves  loose  from  the  cultivated  field  and  the  domain  of  man,  have  ven- 
tured out  into  open  conflict  with  the  denizens  of  the  soil,  and  emerged  victorious 
from  the  struggle.  By  crowding  upon  them,  by  stifling  them,  by  appropriating 
their  food,  they  have  succeeded  in  ousting  their  antagonists,  the  rightful  heirs,  as  by 
similar  practices  the  white  man  has  ousted  the  red  man  from  his  ancestral  land,  and 
hpth  now  occupy  the  country  often  to  the  exlcusion  of  all  save  the  hardiest  of  the 
native  tribes. 
For  example,  the  Scarlet  Poppy  [Papa<ver  dubium)y  a  weed  so  common  in  England 
that  many  a  wheat  field  appears  one  sheet  of  glowing  red  when  it  is  in  full  flower,, 
must  have  come  over  to  America  many  times  in  seed  wheat,  and  is  occasionally  met 
with  here  in  the  fields,  especially  in  Wisconsin  and  other  northwestern  States.  Yet 
outside  of  these,  it  has  never  to  our  knowledge  succeeded  in  propagating  itself.  It 
is  quite  scarce  in  America.  The  Giant  Elecampane  [Inula  helenium),  the  Hoise- 
heal  and  Scabwort  of  the  leech,  so  renowned  among  the  old  herbalists  as  a  remedy 
in  complaints  of  the  chest,  is  but  scantily  diffused.  The  writer  has  met  with  it  in 
the  east  near  Boston  and  in  the  Island  of  Montreal,  and  it  is  abundant  in  the  west 
in  some  parts  of  Ohio  and  Indiana. 
The  English  Groundsel  [Senecio  'vulgaris),  a  favorite  with  the  keepers  of  canary 
birds,  but  by  no  means  in  equal  liking  of  the  English  gardener,  has  failed  to  estab- 
lish itself  in  America.  A  few  specimens  may  occasionally  be  met  with  near  gar- 
dens, but  it  shows  here  none  of  that  reproductive  power  that  makes  it  in  England- 
one  of  the  earliest  weeds  in  the  spring,  and  the  latest  in  the  fall. 
The  Salsify,  or  Vegetable  Oyster  [Tragopogon  porrif alius) ^  a  native  of  the  Medi- 
terranean region,  but  established  in  a  few  places  in  the  south  of  England,  whence  it 
was  probably  imported,  is  most  likely  of  late  introduction,  and  still  on  trial,  not 
having  found  a  place  in  Professor  Gray's  "  Manual  of  the  American  Flora."  The 
writer  has  only  found  it  once  near  St.  Catharine's,  in  Ontario,  in  considerable  quan- 
tities, flowering  and  apparently  bringing  its  seed  to  perfection. 
