14 



An interesting inhabitant of the shores of the lake was 

 Lythrum salicaria, the Purple Loosestrife, common along the 

 Hudson but not hitherto recorded, as far as I know, from Long 

 Island. It is said to have been transplanted by the Long Island 

 State Park Commission's landscape gardeners, from the Hud- 

 son. It is doing very well, and already spreading naturally 

 downstream, and will probably establish itself in fresh and 

 brackish marshes around Great South and Moriches Bays in 

 the course of time, which will add to summer floral associations. 



In the brook, at the bridge west of the Nature Trail was 

 found Callitriche palustris, and around the shores of the pond, 

 where the water had fallen a little, stranded plants of Ludvigia 

 palustris. Another interesting aquatic, which Miss Wiley found 

 in the pond on Park Avenue, Babylon, at the south end of the 

 Park, and which some of us found on the way home, in a partly 

 dried pond on Grand Avenue, Wyandanch, north of the Park, 

 was Heteranthera reniformis, the Mud Plantain, with small, 

 kidney-shaped leaves, and pretty little bluish-white flowers, 

 an attractive little plant. This pond at Wyandanch looks as if 

 it would merit attention on another field trip next year, for a 

 variety of aquatics. The region along this stream, rising north 

 of the railroad at Wyandanch, following it south, through the 

 dry pine and oak woods, reaching the brook wherever possible 

 through a tangle of catbriar, to the lake, and south to the salt 

 marshes on Great South Bay would give an interesting cross 

 section of Long Island vegetation. 



A stately adventive herbaceous plant, at the dam of the 

 lake in the Park, was Artemisia absinthium, the Wormwood. 

 The Nature Trail is worthy of close study, with many shrubs 

 labelled. The inkberry. Ilex glabra is plentiful and well fruited. 

 Around the north end of the lake are typical Leatherleaf bogs, 

 with Drosera rotundifolia and Sarracenia purpurea. A well made 

 path, the Belmont Trail, follows the stream south from the 

 lake to another pond on Park Avenue, Babylon. It would make 

 an easy and rewarding botanical ramble at any season of the year. 



Raymond H. Torrey 



Trip of September 12 to Bear Mountain 



Seventeen persons attended the field trip of Sunday, Sep- 

 tember 13. The morning was spent on the Nature Trail and 

 at the Trailside Museum at Bear Mountain. In the afternoon 



