15 
to Prof, A. N. Prentiss, of Cornell University, who has kindly 
responded as follows :] 
Perhaps the last week in June would be the most satisfactory 
time for obs@rving the floral character of Watkins Glen. I have 
myself visited the place but once, and speak of it from my ac- 
quaintance with similar localities, rather than from personal ob- 
servation. The Southern extremity of all the lakes in Central New 
York is surrounded by hills from 400 to 800 or more feet in height, 
in which deep ravines have been worn by the descending streams. 
These ravines are characterized by a succession of waterfalls and 
eascades, rocky ledges and high cliffs. In places they are ex- 
tremely narrow, but again widen out into broad amphitheatres. 
' The sides are sometimes sloping and covered with a peculiarly 
luxuriant vegetation; at other times they rise into perpendicular 
walls 200 to nearly 400 feet in height. Nooks and recesses abound 
where the sun never shines, and where the air is cool and damp 
the whole summer through. In such places a few plants are found 
which properly belong to a more northern region. _ They are 
doubtless the lingering representatives of the flora which charac- 
terized this latitude during the later portion of the glacial epoch. 
Perhaps the most interesting of these plants is the pretty little 
Primula Mistassinica, Mchx., which abounds in the ravines at the 
head of Crooked and Cayuga Lakes, and probably occurs at Wat- 
kins. A few individuals of this species have for ages maintained a 
loot-hold in those glens, quite separated from their congeners, 
which for the most part abound from Labrador to the Rocky 
ountains and northward tothe Arctic circle. Pinguicula vulgaris, 
-, usually accompanies Primula, Sisymbrium -canescens, Nutt., — 
abounds at Watkins, there being only one other known station mn - 
the State. The floral character of the Fall Creek ravine at Ithaca, 
nown as the Gorge, is quite as peculiar and interesting as that of 
the Glen at Watkins. | 
23. Destruction of Spruce Trees.—In the Zribune of April Ist, is a 
notice of Mr, Verplanek Colvin’s Report to the New York Legisla- . 
ture on the Adirondack Wilderness. Mr. Colvin is reported to say: ‘i 
uring this day’s march through the forest [in the vicinity of 
Cedar River] we saad with a that almost all the majestic — 
Spruce timber was either fallen and decaying or standing dead, so 
netrated with dry rot and decay as to be crumbling to ae 
he same timber, only a few years since, was apparently soun — 
Valuable. Now the lands . . . will probably not command 
ten cents an acre. This sudden decay of the forest 1s a most a 
portant matter to the owners of timber lands thereabouts, and a 
Serves the attention of the botanist.” This observation was made 
r 
last August. Mr, Colvin does not state whether the decay was 
_ ¢ommon to both the White and the Black Spruce, or was confined | 
to the latter. : 7 : . 
_ _ In 1871, Mrs. L. A. Millington, of Glens Falls, abate ee . 
Minute Arceuthobium, a plant of the Mistletoe family, was de mes : 
_ lng the Black Spruce in the Adiroadacks and adjacent country. - 
