Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
September, 1913. No. 177. 
Vol. 15. 
SIX WEEKS’ BOTANIZING IN VERMONT, = I. 
NOTES ON THE PLANTS OF THE BURLINGTON REGION. 
SıpNeEY F. BLAKE. 
DvuniNG the summer of 1911, acting on the suggestion of Prof. M. L. 
Fernald, I spent the period from 18 July to 30 August botanizing in 
the Champlain Valley of Vermont, devoting particular attention to 
tracing out the altitudinal ranges of a considerable number of plants 
whose distribution is in a general way coincident with the coastal 
plain or its extensions. Four weeks were spent in the Burlington 
Region, with Essex Junction as a center, after which I spent two weeks 
in northern Vermont, with headquarters at Swanton, the second town 
below the Canadian line on the shore of Lake Champlain. 
Essex Junction, with an elevation of 358 feet above sea level, is in 
the midst of a number of sand and gravel plains of glacial origin, some- 
times of very pure and shifting sand, on which are found several spe- 
cies very local or quite absent in other sections of the state, such as 
Carex Muhlenbergii, Cyperus Houghtonii, Asclepias amplexicaulis, and 
Prunus cuneata, with such commoner things of similar habitat as 
Salix humilis, Lespedeza capitata, Lupinus perennis, Polygala poly- 
gama, and Viola adunca. The highest sand plain met with, called 
locally the * High Plains," was at 500 feet, and here grew such plants 
as Lechea intermedia, Aster linariifolius, Betula populifolia, and Myrica 
asplenifolia, characteristie species of sterile soils nearly throughout 
New England. On the sandy beach of Lake Champlain (96 feet above 
sea level), at Malletts Bay and elsewhere, grew Spartina Michauxiana, 
Scirpus americanus, S. fluviatilis, S. heterochactus, Salix longifolia, 
Polanisia graveolens, Potentilla Anserina and its handsome variety 
