132 



trillium and marsh marigold just coming out. Many other spring 

 flowers were well started but not yet in bloom. 



We had the unexpected treat of seeing Corema conradii in 

 bloom. A specimen collected the previous Saturday on Gertrude's 

 Nose south of Minnewaska had come out in water. 



Daniel Smiley, Jr. 



Trip of May 17-19 to Branchville, N. J. 



This sixteenth Nature Conference of the Club was most suc- 

 cessful. Seventy-eight persons were present for some or all of the 

 trips. The season, due to the cool weather, was about two weeks late. 

 Thus a few hepaticas (Hepatica triloba) were still in bloom, a 

 patch of arbutus (Epigaea repens) had some of its fragrant flowers, 

 the purple clematis {Clematis verticillaris or Atragne americana) 

 was at its best with the bluish purple flowers trailing over the lime- 

 stone rocks, and columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) had not reached 

 the height of its bloom. The scarlet painted cup (Castilleja coc- 

 cinea) which has been found in some fields in abundance in other 

 years was not yet in blossom and the pink lady's slipper (Cypri- 

 pedium acaule) and the showy orchid {Orchis spectabilis) showed 

 only small buds. About some of the ponds visited the prickly ash or 

 toothache-tree {Zanthoxylmn americanum) had both the staminate 

 and pistillate plants covered with the small flowers. Professor 

 Medsger who led trips each day reports "The fronds of the fine 

 colony of Goldie's fern were just pushing through the earth, ap- 

 parently only one plant remains of the cluster of ostrich fern back 

 of the hotel. In the talus at the foot of the cliff along the lake we 

 found several plants of the bladder fern {Cystopteris bulbifera) ; 

 apparently this is the first time this has been reported from The 

 Pines, although I have found it west of Newton only a few miles 

 away. Another plant new to the region and possibly to the state, 

 is the European pepperwort {Marsilia quadrifolia) . A small, but 

 healthy colony is growing in the shallow water near the north end 

 of the lake back of the inn. It would be interesting to know how 

 this plant became established at Branchville — was it transplanted 

 by human agency (no one at the inn knows of its coming) or were 

 spores carried in mud on the feet of birds, or by some other means. 

 The cluster of yellow lady's slipper {Cypripcdium parviflonim) in 



