165 



NOTES ON THE FLORA OF ONEIDA LAKE 

 AND VICINITY 



By Homer D. House 



The flora of Oneida Lake and its vicinity, in central New York, 

 has a decidedly local aspect and differs greatly from that of other 

 lakes of central or western New York. The lake is about 

 twenty miles long, from east to west, and five or six miles wide 

 at its eastern end. The drainage is into Lake Ontario through 

 the Oneida and Oswego rivers. It lies at an altitude of 350 feet 

 above the sea level. 



The eastern shore is a broad beach of white sand, from 100 to 

 300 feet in width. This sand underlies the superficial soil for 

 several miles to the east. It is quite evident that this extensive 

 sandy region east of the lake must have been covered by water 

 within recent geological times. The exposure of the sand fol- 

 lowing the removal of the original forest has produced in many 

 places sand-plains, barrens, sandy marshes and bogs. The 

 southern shore is also low and in many places marshy, while the 

 northern shore is high and mostly stony. The sandy beach of 

 the eastern shore is particularly rich in small cyperaceous plants, 

 such as Cyperus rivularis Kunth, C. inflexus Muhl., C. speciosus 

 Vahl, C. filiculmis Vahl, Fimbristylis autumnalis (L.) R. & S., 

 Scirpus Smithii A. Gray, S. Americamis Pers., Hemicarpha micran- 

 tlia (Vahl) Britton, Eleocharis aciadaris (L.) R. & S., E. inter- 

 media (Willd.) Schultes. Among the flowering plants, LatJiyrus 

 maritimns (L.) Bigel. and Polygonella articidata (L.) Meissn., two 

 species which are commonly credited to the seashore and the 

 great lakes, occur here quite plentifully. The former was men- 

 tioned by Paine in his Catalogue of Plants of Oneida County in 

 1865. The latter, much more abundant, was not reported by 

 him and may be a later arrival. The sandy fields and barrens 

 around the eastern end of the lake yield such uncommon species 

 as Stenophyllus capillaris (L.) Britton, Blephariglottis ciliaris (L.) 

 Rydb., Gyrostacliys gracilis (Bigel.) Kuntze, G. oclirolcuca Rydb., 

 Asclepias titberosa L., Vcrbascum Lychnitis L., Viola fimbriatida 



