Azolla caroliniana survives in Queens kettle hole pond 

 R \ym< ind 1 1. Torre? 



A small colony of the tiny pteridophyte, Azolla caroliniana, 

 rarely reported in our range, survives in one of the kettle hole 

 ponds, in the terminal moraine, in Queens Borough, New York 

 City. Possibly it is the only occurrence, in the Torrey Club range, 

 as others reported are probably now extinct. It is such a small 

 thing, that it may be overlooked, and there may be other colonies 

 in favorable places, but on the record they are extremely rare 

 in this vicinity. 



Norman Taylor, in his Flora of the Vicinity of New York, 

 (1915) recorded Azolla only from a small pond in Clove Valley, 

 Staten Island, and in the Morris Canal, near Bloomfield, N. J. 

 The Morris Canal colony is certainly extinct, for the canal has 

 been abandoned and dried up for ten years. The ponds in Clove 

 Valley are now included in a city park and it is probable that 

 "improvements" and recreational uses have eliminated Azolla 

 there, too. 



The Queens Borough colony is in one of a group of kettle 

 hole ponds which have long been a resort for members of the 

 Torrey Botanical Club and the New York Microscopical Socie- 

 ty. Such unusual plants, for the territory of Greater New York, 

 as Orontium aquaticum, Riccia fluitans and Ricciocarpus natans 

 survive in these ponds. But recent parkway and park improve- 

 ments have destroyed some ponds, and conventionalized others. 

 The pond where the Azolla survives has been partly filled in by 

 the landscaping of the new Grand Central Parkway. It is lo- 

 cated about 1000 feet east of Rocky Hill Road, which runs 

 north from Hillside Avenue, a mile north of Queens Village. 



Azolla is a beautiful plant, under a hand lens, \ to \ inch 

 long, I to j inch wide with its generally wedge shaped fronds, 

 divided into minute branches, greenish with red tips, and in the 

 mass gives a bronze effect. It floats on the surface, in this locality, 

 amidst dense colonies of the floating Duck Meat, Lemna. 



To any one finding it for the first time, like this writer, it 

 would be puzzling where to look for it in the manuals. It sug- 

 gests a minute floating hepatic, such as the Riccias. Dr. Mar- 

 shall A. Howe who identified it for me, says the plant has been 



11 



