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Trip of August 25 to Juniper Swamp and Idlewild 



The August 25th field meeting of the Torrey Botanical Club to 

 Juniper Swamp and Idlewild, Queens County, New York, N. Y., 

 for the study and collection of grasses and sedges, occurred on a 

 cool sunshiny day. The meeting point was Queens Boulevard and 

 Woodhaven Boulevard. Our way was south along Woodhaven 

 Boulevard and then across southwest to Caldwell Avenue where 

 Panicum latijolium L. was pointed out in a patch of catbriers, 

 a woodland species in very thrifty condition although not now shel- 

 tered by trees. The trees were cut off at least thirty years ago. 



Soon we climbed down the steep bank of the New York Con- 

 necting Railroad to the tracks along which we walked south. On 

 the left bank we soon passed many large tufts of Deschampsia 

 flexuosa (L.) Trin. usually found on rocky ledges. 



Toward the top of the dry bank, there was a large area of 

 Spartina pectinata Link, probably a holdover from earlier years 

 when this region was a part of the extensive Juniper Swamp. The 

 natural habitat of this grass is along the edge of a slough or near 

 ditches in a salt marsh or on the drier parts of such a marsh. 



Before reaching Elliot Avenue just ahead of us, a few culms of 

 a grass, two feet high, was collected alongside of the tracks, that 

 no one in the group recognized at sight. With the help of Gray's 

 Manual, we agreed that our grass was Sporoholus cryptandrus 

 (Torr.) A. Gray which proved to be a species new to the western 

 half of Long Island. This species was reported in House "Anno- 

 tated List" as having been collected at Orient Point, eastern end 

 of Long Island, many years ago. 



A little further south we climbed the bank to the west, out of 

 the railroad cut, crossed Elliot Avenue and approached the station 

 for Calamagrostis epigeios var. georgica (C. Koch.) Ledeb. located 

 partly on a sloping bank, and partly on the level of the swamp and 

 near the railroad cut. This station was discovered by the writer in 

 late fall of 1936 in a condition too much battered by early fall rains 

 for certain identification. The following spring this grass was easily 

 identified and the identification was verified by Mrs. Agnes Chase, 

 Senior Agrostologist of the Smithsonian Institution. This species 

 had been known for a number of years from a station in Massa- 

 chusetts, Barnstable County; and, more recently from a smaller 

 area in eastern Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia. The 



