1909.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 373 



THE VEGETATION OF THE SALT MARSHES AND OF THE SALT AND FRESH 

 WATER PONDS OF NORTHERN COASTAL NEW JERSEY. 



BY JOHN W. HARSHBERGER. 



In a number of papers 1 of greater or less length, I have discussed 

 the character of the vegetation of the New Jersey coast. The obser- 

 vations recorded in these various brochures cover territorially the 

 immediate coast from Bay Head in the north to Cape May in the 

 south, and were based on field work and on the study of collections 

 made for the several large herbaria in Philadelphia. During a resi- 

 dence at Belmar, New Jersey, from August 12 to September 15, 1908, 

 and July 7 to September 8, 1909, an opportunity was afforded of making 

 collections, and of completing a survey of the vegetation of the New 

 Jersey coast, begun in 1893, by a study of the coast from Manasquan 

 Inlet north to Sandy Hook and along Sandy Hook Bay several miles 

 westward from Highland Beach. 



On several railroad trips from Belmar to New York City, I was able, 

 by a familiarity with the coastal flora for over a period of fifteen years, 

 to extend my observations, while on the moving trains, as far north 

 as the Hudson River, notably at Red Bank on the Navesink River, at 

 Matawan on Matawan Creek, along Newark Bay — in fact, such obser- 

 vations were made wherever undisturbed salt marshes were crossed 

 by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Pennsylvania Railroad 

 between Belmar and Jersey City. So that, although the description 

 given in this paper is confined to the coast between Manasquan Inlet 

 and Sandy Hook Bay, where collections and a field study were made, 

 yet it can be said that, from the car-window observations, 2 essentially 



1 Harshberger, John W.: Plants for the Seashore, Garden and Forest, V: 45; 

 An Ecological Study of the New Jersey Strand Flora, Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1900: 623-671; Additional Observations 

 on the Strand Flora of New Jersey, do., 1902: 642-669; Forest Growth at Wild- 

 wood, New Jersey, Forest Leaves, IX: 40, June, 1903; The Mutation of Hibiscus 

 moscheutos, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1903: 

 326; The Formation and Structure of the Mycodomatia of Myrica cerifera, do., 

 1903: 352-362; The Comparative Leaf Structure of the Strand Plants of New 

 Jersey, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, XLVIII: 72-89, with 

 4 plates. 



2 This has been the favorite method of Dr. Roland M. Harper in his study 

 of the coastal flora of the Southern States. It is fairly satisfactory as extending 

 the range of certain types of vegetation, but is unscientific unless checked by 

 actual collections and study of a section of the plant formations investigated, as 

 put into practice above. 



