177 



It is good to get out and associate with these plants for a day 



occasionally — good even for a scientist. „ -n T\/r 



■' ^ Edwin B. Matzke 



Trip of May 25 to Plainfield and Watchung, N. J. 



Because of the rainy weather, this trip was conducted in a some- 

 what different fashion from any previous year. The party botanized 

 the entire distance from the railroad station in Plainfield, through 

 North Plainfield and Watchung, to the home of the leader. Several 

 hundred plants were identified along this course, including first the 

 cultivated plants in gardens along the city streets and the weeds 

 found along the sidewalks, then the ruderal plants along the open 

 highways (mostly European introductions), and finally the native 

 plants of thickets, woods, open field, and marshes in Washington 

 Valley. Splendid examples of ecologic succession were pointed 

 out. One of these was the common invasion of open fields, for- 

 merly used as pastures, but now no longer grazed, by red cedars, 

 gray birches, northern bayberry, maleberry, and several species of 

 huckleberry and blueberry, and the gradual advance of the deciduous 

 oak-maple-hickory forest down the mountain slopes into the fields 

 after they were thus invaded by the "pioneer" plants which pro- 

 vided the shade in which the tree seedlings could grow. Another was 

 the transition of a plot of ground which had been cleared and cul- 

 tivated by an early settler, then invaded by the Jerusalem artichoke 

 until a pure stand of this species covered the entire lot, and finally 

 having the artichokes driven out and completely replaced by native 

 goldenrods and asters. Large numbers of Morrow's bush-honey- 

 suckle and ibota privet were found along fences and hedgerows 

 where they had been "planted" by birds. In Wetumpka Notch the 

 sugar maple, Canada hemlock, rock polypody, and green ash were 

 observed with interest. The cuckoo-flower was found still in anthe- 

 sis. Several colonies of the freak smooth sumac, Rhus glabra f. 

 abludens, were pointed out. The afternoon was spent, between 

 showers, in studying some of the woodland, meadow, and brookside 

 plants, among the most noteworthy of which were the moccasin- 

 flower, showy orchis, northern wild-comfrey, and violet wood- 



^°"'^^- Harold N. Moldenke 



