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in western Long Island, known as the Hempstead Plains. This 
prairie originally covered at least sixteen thousand acres, but air 
helds and suburban dwellings are encroaching upon it, so that its 
obliteration as a natural feature is at hand. (For views of the 
Hempstead Plains see the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, Vol. 
XXV, No. 3, 1936). In the spring, before the Andropogon grass 
has had time to elongate, the bird-foot violet (Miola pedata, Fig. 
7d) is still abundant enough in a few places to make a blue haze on 
the landscape. The white spikes of Aletris farinosa and the yellow 
clumps of wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) come later in the sum- 
mer. Among other interesting plants of this area are yellow star- 
grass (Hypoxis hirsuta, Fig. Ze), Lyonia mariana, the dwarf 
willow (Salix tristis), sand cherry (Prunus pumila), a yellow rock- 
rose (Helianthemuim dumosum), and Viola Mulfordae (a hybrid 
between I’. fimbriatula and |”, Brittoniana). A truckload of turf 
obtained last winter from one of the best remaining areas in the 
Plains gives us a replica of the vegetation. 
Still to the right of the grass pathway is a shallow pond of 
elliptic shape, representing the sand-rimmed kettle-hole ponds. in 
the glaciated area of Long Island. This contains such aquatics as 
the golden club (Orontium), pickerel-weed (Pontederia), the 
small-flowered pond lily (Castalia odorata var. minor), Coreopsis 
rosea, Gratiola aurea, and forms of the arrowhead (Sagittaria 
latifolia). On the sandy border are Stachys hyssopifolia, a tuber- 
ous-rooted mint characteristic of the coastal-plain; various species 
of native Lespedesa; Hypericum densiflorum, now known also from 
Long Island as well as from the New Jersey pine barrens; the 
inagenta-flowered Rhevia virginica; and Hemicarpha micrantha, a 
nunute globular sedge found on sandy shores. On the far side of 
the pond is a plantation of pitch pine (Pinus rigida) interspersed 
with beach plum (Primus maritima), bayberry (Myrica carolinen- 
sis), sweet-fern (MM. asplenifolia), and other thicket-forming 
penny 
shrubs. 
dordering this pond to the westward and also fringed by the 
pitch pines is an area of dry white sand, approximately eight to 
twelve inches deep and overlying the original clay-loam. At first 
such sand was obtained from the New Jersey pine-barrens and 
from similar barrens of Long Island; but it has been found that 
