Excerpt from Report of the Flora of Westchester County

The botanists of New York city are active, industrious collectors, and have absolutely exhausted most of the localities within walking distance of the city, especially such portions of New Jersey, Staten Island and parts of Long Island. The Harlem River, however, seems to have been, to a great extent, the limit to their excursions in this direction, hence, this county is less known to New York botanists than any other region within the same distance of the city. The collecting of information has, therefore, been more formidable than suspected.

The State of New York has a remarkably large Flora but it has a territory extending about 3 50 miles from north to south, and nearly the same distance from east to west - giving it a wide range of climate and temperature. It has plains along the coast elevated just a little above the sea level, and mountains on the eastern border rising feet above the ocean, it possesses every variety of soil, from the sands of the Saranac region to the alluvial plains of the western slope and the rich bottom lands of the head waters of the Susquehanna, and the val leys of the Mohawk and the Upper Hudson.

Dr. Torrey, in his report of the Flora of the State, stated that the number of ¿owering plants would reach 5 and the Ferns and Lycopodiaceae, sixty.

There will be great reason, then, for wonder, when it is found that the number of plants growing without cultivation in Westchester County a territory about fifty miles in extent from north to south, and whose average width from east to west is not half so much - is more than a thousand.

There are ¿owering plants enumerated in this catalogue, and forty-six ferns and their allies.

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