IV PREFACE. 



find some plants, like Bidens Beckii (Water Marigold) for instance, not found 

 elsewhere, and all these lakes will repay exploration. It is the smaller ponds 

 and adjoining marshes, rich with decaying vegetation, that more abundantly 

 reward the persevering herbalist. Of these, also, there are more on the east- 

 ern side of the Connecticut river than on the western side. Not a few of 

 them are high up among the hills, visited very seldom and by very few, but in 

 these high and cool bogs there still is found the remains of a vegetation that 

 long since deserted the warmer lowlands. Here are the rarer Sedges and 

 Grasses, Sarracenia (Pitcher Plant), and Orchids, besides Ericaceous plants 

 like Azalea, Rhodora, Andromeda, and Ledum (Labrador Tea), as well as 

 others of equal interest. Periods of drought seldom reach these rich and 

 moist garden spots. 



Of the three mountain peaks referred to above, Moosilauke in Benton, N. H., 

 4,811 ft. in altitude, is the only one having a treeless summit of any consid- 

 erable extent, suggestive of Alpine plants, and there a few species appear, 

 such as Arenaria Grcetilandica (Mountain Sandwort), Loiseleiiria p7-oaimbens 

 (Alpine Azalea), Vaccinmm Vitis-Idcra (Mountain Cranberry), Vaccinium 

 iiliginostim (Bog Bilberry), and Solidago alphia (Alpine Golden-rod), etc. 

 Kearsarge Mt. near Salisbury, N. H., and Killington Mt., with the adjoining 

 peaks in Sherburne and Mendon, Vt., are well wooded nearly to their sum- 

 mits, and have upon them little or nothing strictly alpine. The same is 

 true of Mt. Ascutney near Windsor, Vt., and the same may be said of Cube 

 Mt. in Orford, and Smart's Mt. in Lyme, N. H. This latter elevation is pecu- 

 liar in this, that the timber on the summit, instead of being stunted and worth- 

 less, is of full marketable size. Cardigan Mt. in Orange, N. H., has a con- 

 spicuous treeless summit, but little truly Alpine, unless we except Vaccinium 

 Vitis-Idcea, has been reported from there. It is probable that a more careful 

 exploration might result in some new discoveries on any or all of these 

 mountains. 



In addition to the lakes and mountains, numerous streams are found within 

 the district on whose banks and in whose waters are forms of vegetation 

 peculiar to such localities and to them alone. Rivers like the Connecticut, 

 with numerous tributaries, are great highways for the distribution of both 

 seeds and growing plants. Every freshet bears these along in its swift cur- 

 rent, and transports them many miles from the place of their origin. They 

 are stranded on the shore, or find a home in the still pools along the margin 

 of the stream, and once established may remain indefinitely. This explains 

 the presence of Astragalus alpinus (Alpine-Vetch) on the rocks at Sumner's 

 Falls in Plainfield, N. H. — a plant of the far north — together with Astragalus 

 Robbinsii, a species of equal interest. When, moreover, the river recedes 

 during a period of drought, the shore that is laid bare supjDlies conditions 

 under which a still different vegetation makes its appearance. Ranuncuhis 

 Flamjnula, var. repians (Creeping Buttercup) then spreads its green carpet 

 dotted with yellow stars upon the sand ; and other plants, that are shut out of 

 their needed supply of oxygen by high water, begin once more to flourish. 



Plants are as migratory as any other of the world's inhabitants. They are 

 always ready to make use of the same great thoroughfares and of the same 



