72 The Flora of th Adirondack*. 



beaut}' of its species. Here we have the llora of hill and 

 valley, of sandy plain and rich meadow land, of spliagnous 

 marsh and clear running stream. The forest trees include 

 all, or nearly all that are found elsewhere in the northern 

 states. The maples, the beech, the birches and the oaks, 

 butternut, hard hack and cherry, the tall white pine and the 

 Norway pine, the single and the double spruce, the hemlock, 

 balsam and arbor vitffi, the linden and poplar, the larch 

 and the willow, the elm and the ash meet us wherever 

 we turn, giving great variety of form and shade of greeu 

 in summer, and contributing to the gorgeous colors of 

 autumn for which these forests are so celebrated. 



A few rarer species of forest trees are here. On the 

 sandy plain two miles west of Keeseville I have often seen 

 the PimiS Inops, Jersey pine, which has never been reported 

 by any other observer in the limits of Xew York. There 

 is also a group of these rare pines in a little grove half a 

 mile west of Mrs. Wadhams's bouse in Westport. The 

 canoe, or paper birch, rare in other sections of New York, 

 is here found in abundance on the hill sides, and the 

 Abies nigra or double spruce, although found in other 

 parts of the state, abounds nowhere else, and it is among 

 these hills that it attains its greatest dimensions. Of 

 shrubs and herbs we have an almost endless variety. We 

 may only mention some of the rarer and more beautiful 

 forms, as our limits permit no attempt at making a cata- 

 logue. One of the most striking beauties of the Ad iron- 

 dack forests is the elegant climber Clematis Veriicilaris^ 

 virgin bower. This superb plant, supporting itself upon 

 small trees and underbrush, often reaches a height of 

 twenty or twenty-five feet, and when in bloom covers the 

 trees upon which it twines with rich purple campanulate 

 blossoms, each nearly two indies in diameter, hanging in 

 elegant festoons and appearing amidst the green foliage 

 like swarms of butterflies. Another twining clematis, the 

 C. Virginiana,\s more common, often covering the hedges 



