The island received its flora from the mainland, in fact the botanist is unable to point out a single instance of tree, shrub, or herb, now growing upon the island not also to be found upon the mainland. But the distinguishing characteristic of its flora is not the possession of any plant elsewhere unknown, but the abundance of individuals and species, which the island displays. There are to be found in Western New York about 170 species of trees and shrubs. Goat Island and the immediate vicinity of the river near the Falls can show of these no less than 140. There are represented on the island four maples, three species of thorn, two species of ash, and six species, distributed in five genera, of the cone-bearing family. The one species of basswood belonging to the vicinity is also there. Mr. Day has a catalogue of plants in his report to the Reservation Commissioners, giving 909 species of plants to be found on the Reservation, of which 758 are native and 151 foreign. Wrote Margaret Fuller: The beautiful wood on Goat Island is full of flowers, many of the fairest love to do homage there. The wake robin and the May apple are in bloom, the former white, pink, green, purple, copying the rainbow of the Falls, and fit it for its presiding Deity when He walks the land, for they are of imperial size and shaped like stones for a diadem. Of the May apple I did not raise one green tent without finding a flower beneath. Explaining the climatic advantages of the island Mr. Olmsted remarks: First, the masses of ice which every winter are piled to a great height below the Falls and the great rushing body of ice cold water coming from the northern lakes in the spring prevent at Niagara the hardship under which trees elsewhere often suffer through sudden checks to premature growth. And second, when droughts elsewhere occur, as they do every few years, of such severity that trees in full foliage droop and dwindle and even sometimes cast their leaves, the atmosphere at Niagara is more or less moistened by the constantly evaporating spray of the Falls, and in certain situations bathed by drifting clouds of spray.