life of all of our wild flowers. The influence of climate as to 

 plants is plainly shown in our county. The Ohio river, with its 

 low altitude, and mild influences, gives us many flowers that 

 range through our southern states, even to Carolina and Georgia ; 

 while the high ranges of hills, with altitudes of 1300 feet, along 

 Little Beaver river, with its colder climate, make the flora in 

 many respects like that of the Lake region and Canada. Our 

 entire county is covered with drift of shales and boulders from 

 the ice age, alternating sands, clays and gravels, and the flora of 

 any township depends chiefly on which of these soils happen to 

 lie uppermost. Bordering the streams in every township, the 

 hemlock spruce is abundant, and amid their gloomy recesses are 

 found the club mosses, parasites, the handsome pink ladies' 

 slippers Cypripediums, the Aspleniums and Phegopteris ferns in 

 abundance. Along the low valleys and in the peat bogs of Pine 

 swamp above New Gallilee, grow many varieties of Habenarias, 

 with other orchids ; also the three royal Osmunda ferns, with 

 fronds six feet high. Each year there is less opportunity for 

 collecting", the lumberman with his portable saw mill, moves on 

 to fresh spoils, leaving behind an inextricably confused mass of 

 tree tops, broken logs and upturned stumps. The best part of 

 botany after all is not in the books, and to any who find the 

 study dry, we commend camping out with nature herself ; that 

 boundless outdoor life, whose interest, beauty and mystery is 

 with us from the cradle to the grave, forever stimulating inquiry, 

 and ever lichly rewarding patient and loving toil. 



Beaver, Pa., January ist, T903. 



