E E E OE I 
Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 1 December, 1899 No. 12 
WINTER BOTANIZING. 
WM. P. Rick. 
IN the early years of my botanical experience October brought to a 
close the collecting season, and with the appearance of the Witch-Hazel 
flowers I thought it useless to continue further exploration. As the 
Hepatica was to me, in those years at least, the first flower of the year, 
so the Witch-Hazel was the last. These two species marked the begin- 
ning and the end of my botanical calendar. For eleven years my note- 
books show no date later than October 22, but as the seasons came 
and went subjects of alluring interest presented themselves, gradually 
extending the botanical year at both ends, so that now to quote a 
sentence from Thoreau, “You cannot say that vegetation absolutely 
ceases at any season in this latitude." 
The late E. H. Hitchings of interesting memory has recorded the 
fact that “the wild flowers even in this cold region, blossom every month 
in the year, ”* adding in proof of his statement that he had found the 
Hepatica in flower from September to May, nine consecutive months. 
Somewhat surprised as well as interested by these statements, and with 
a desire to know for myself the extent to which our plants are found in 
flower during the winter months, I have during the past few years noted 
all such as I have seen or that have come to my notice through other 
observers. It is not of course intended in this article to include cryptog- 
amous plants, such as mosses, lichens, fungi and algae, many of which, 
indeed, attain their fullest development more abundantly in the winter 
than in the summer months. 
That wild-flowers bloom all the year round in New England, though 
literally true, is a statement obviously to be taken with many qualifica- 
1 Transactions Mass. Hort. Society, 1893. 
