Book Description

Excerpt from Catalogue of the Flora of Minnesota, Vol. 6: Including Its Phaenogamous and Vascular Cryptogamous Plants, Indigenous, Naturalized, and Adventive; Part Vi of the Annual Report of Progres for the Year 1883 The following catalogue of the plants of Minnesota is presented as a report of progress in this department of the geological and natural history survey of the state. It includes not only the observations of the state geologist and his assistants upon this survey, but also those of earlier botanic collectors and explorers, enumerating all the species that are known to have been found in Minnesota by all observers up to the present time. Grateful mention of the various sources, in chronologic order, from which this list is largely a compilation, is therefore its most appropriate preface. Hennepin, Carver, Pike, and other early explorers of this state, occasionally refer to some of its forest trees, wild fruits and berries, and plants used for food or medicine by the Indians. Carver, who traveled to the upper part of the Minnesota river in 1767, wrote of the region through which it flows: - "Wild rice grows here in great abundance; and every part is filled with trees bending under their loads of fruits, such as plums, grapes, and apples; the meadows are covered with hops, and many sorts of vegetables; whilst the ground is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard, and groundnuts." On the uplands bordering the river he saw "such amazing quantities of maples, that they would produce sugar sufficient for any number of inhabitants." The first published list of plants, so far as known to the writer, that includes species found in Minnesota, is in the American Journal of Science, vol. iv, 1822, pages 56 to 69, entitled "Notice of the Plants collected by Professor D.B. Douglass, of West Point, in the expedition under Governour Cass, during the summer of 1820, around the Great Lakes and the upper waters of the Mississippi: the arrangement and description, with illustrative remarks, being furnished by Dr. John Torrey." This includes 115 species, 26 of which were from Minnesota. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."