DANIEf.S ON FLORA OF MANISTEE, MICHIGAN. 129 



than that of the pine in spite of the fact that it fares less severely under 

 the lumberman's ax. But the oak, I take it, is a valuable substitute for 

 the conifers. The prevailing opinion of lumbermen is that the oak will 

 never make timber trees. I think this is a mistake. On good soil it makes 

 as good a growth as it does in central Michigan on its own natural 

 openings. It is a slow grower and it is unfair to call it contemptously 

 scrub oak. Such it is, doubtless, on the barrens, and so is the pine a 

 scrub pine there. In my opinion the problem of refoi-estry in good pine 

 land will be solved by protecting the incoming oak from fire, by properly 

 thinning it, and allowing it time to overcome the resin in the soil by the 

 yearly mulching of its own leaves. The flora of the oak openings follows 

 the oak, the proper pine flora is persisting as best it may; but fires and 

 pasturings allow only the hardiest herbs to survive. 



The third mesophytic flora is that of the bottoms, limber lands, etc. As 

 the pine grows on sand, so the maple and beech choose a rich black soil. 

 Around Manistee there is but the alluvial bottoms near Bar Lake. Of 

 timber land there is the Bar- Lake forest, and a few acres back of Oak 

 Grove cemetery. Of typical birch forest there are but a few groves re- 

 maining. The extreme back end of the cemetery woods is of birch forma- 

 tion, and the best farm lands around Manistee appear to have been of 

 birch soil. The canoe birch, however, is ubiquitous. On the summit of a 

 dune, on a bleak shore, in pine barrens, or in deep swamps, it is equally 

 at home. This third flora is rich in species, and were there more of it 

 around Manistee, it would have first rank in importance. 



The hydrophytic vegetation is hard to classify', the springy banks of 

 Lake Michigan are rich in equiseta ; the northern green orchis, and the 

 golden sedge {Carex aurea, Nutt.) abound in the shade of the arbor vitae. 

 Liverworts are plentiful here. There are few sphagnous bogs, but some 

 of the rarest floral treasures are found therein. The pale laurel, the white 

 cotton grass, the mountain holly, cranberry, accompany the characteristic 

 Cassandra. Along rills in ravines and around springs is found the most 

 delicate of all Ihe plant formations here. The naked bishop's cap, the 

 Goodyeras, the yellow Mimulus, blue speedwell, the toothwort, several 

 slender sedges and grasses, and in the fall the striking cardinal flower, 

 make these places a delight to the botanist, to say nothing of the delicate 

 mosses, liverworts and ferns. The swales and bogs in the timber lands 

 have their peculiar sedges, and while the vegetation is rank, it is not as 

 coarse as that of the more open swamps and bogs. The tressed sedge 

 {Carex crinita, Lam.) is not so stiff and coarse as the cat tails and cotton 

 grasses of the open bog. The typical swamp has a watery nucleus filled 

 with various aquatics. Then comes a limose or amphibious formation, 

 often junceous, typhaceous or scirpoideous. Then follows a zone of 

 cotton grasses and stiff sedges, then perhaps a belt of grasses or a girdle 

 of tall composites, principally golden rod, aster, boneset, and stick-tights. 

 Or the swamp may have a girdle of shrubs, buttonbush, chokeberry, 

 winterberry, tall blueberry, dogwood, rose, willow, red raspberry. A 

 fern brake may follow, mostly Osmundas. The marsh meadows around 

 Bar Lake are typical of the class. Yellow sedge {Carex ffava. L.), Cala- 

 magrostls Canadensis Beau., sundews, adder's tongues (Ophioglossum), 

 pitcher plants, rushes, Cladium, purple-fringed orchis, ferns, etc., abound. 

 The margins of ponds and lakes have their limose species, creeping in the 

 mud, their amphibious bullrushes, sweet flags, blue flags, etc., and the 

 ponds and lakes themselves are full of duckweeds, pondweeds, and often 

 17 



