FIELD TRIPS OF THE CLUB 



Trip of i\L\Kc ii 20 to Fran'kmn Lakk, N. J. 



I'hrough some mischance no announcement of the trip was 

 published in the papers so the leader was the only one present. 



Nevertheless, I was determined to make the trip count for 

 something, so I walked up to the Persimmon stand myself and 

 took notes on the height, diameter, and other data for all the 

 trees I could find. I found a very interesting situation. The 

 trees which, as you know, grow on the western edge of the 

 swamp, have the characteristic of sending out occasional new 

 shoots from their roots which are running parallel to the surface 

 of the ground, so that the continuance of the stand does not 

 seem to depend on seeding, although in a few cases seeds may 

 have germinated. It seems to be rather an establishment of the 

 group due to this underground method of asexual reproduction, 

 such as we get in locusts and sumacs, and, further, the trees 

 seemed to have been there a very long time, much longer than 

 appears from their diameters, for I found old trunks, weathered 

 and bare, which are Persimmon wood. My theory is that a 

 crow, or some other large bird, carried a Persimmon fruit there 

 many years ago, and the stand has been derived from that single 

 event. 



There is a similar stand of Persimmons at Lighthouse Point, 

 New Haven, which has always been of great intest to Connecti- 

 cut botanists. Also, it would be interesting to find out other 

 stations of the Persimmon in this region, which must be pretty 

 close to the northern limit of the range. The trees at Franklin 

 Lake do not seem to be very thrifty. I saw many cases of dying- 

 back, due to the cold weather. 



Arthur H. Graves 



Trip of April 10 to the Pine Barrens of N. J. 



Attempting to meet the party near Cedar Bridge, the writer 

 drove direct from Trenton, N.J. to the old location for Corenia 

 described by Redfield in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 

 Club, Vol. XVI, 1889. "road running west-northwest from 

 Cedar Bridge . . . for about two and one-half miles to where 

 the road is crossed by a north and south road, and following this 

 for half or two-thirds of a mile south." 



99 



