Notes on Introduced Plants Collected near Arlington, 

 Staten Island^ 



Arthur Hollick 



Land that has for its foundation a natural area of salt marsh, 

 with an artificial superstructure composed of garbage, street 

 sweepings, ballast from vessels, refuse from freight cars, and 

 cinders from engines and manufacturing establishments, with a 

 maze of railroad tracks gridironing the surface, is not apt to 

 appeal to the casual observer as a locality that may be studied 

 with either pleasure or profit, and is more than likely to be avoided. 

 Such a locality lies just beyond Arlington station on the North 

 Shore Division of the Rapid Transit Railroad, and at certain 

 seasons of the year it may be sensed by the nose before it is fully 

 revealed to the eyes. Nevertheless it is a region replete with 

 interest to the botanist and, to a certain extent, to the student of 

 social economy. The botanist will find there many interesting 

 introduced plants, and he who is interested in social economics 

 may note and discuss the exigencies of civilization which brought 

 them there and the effects that may result from their introduction. 



Probably all except a very few of the plants now growing 

 there were introduced as seeds in the refuse that had been used 

 for filling in the salt marsh. Some species exist only for a single 

 season and then disappear, but others become established as per- 

 '^-•anent and often undesirable citizens, pressing hard upon and 

 frequently spreading into and crowding out the adjacent native 

 vegetation; and it is a significant fact that nearly all of our most 

 troublesome weeds have come to us in this way. 



Those derived from the garbage deposits include the potato, 

 tomato, pea, bean, pumpkin, muskmelon, watermelon, gourd, tur- 

 nip, grape, apple, orange, etc., and are not fitted to persist, either 



^ Presented .A.pril i6, 1910. 



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