I-IKLI) TRIPS OK Till-: (II B 

 March 18 in Kissena Park 



Eighteen members and guests joined the leader in a search 

 for signs of spring along the line of the old railroad running 

 through the swamp southeast of Kissena Park. This is the road 

 said to have been built by A. T. Stewart, the famous New 

 York merchant, in 1871, and ran from Klushing to Garden City, 

 with an extension to Bethpage. At the beginning, near the 

 Jamaica- Klushing trolley tracks, the Hazelnut, Corylus ameri- 

 cana, was found, with the crimson stigmas just peeping forth 

 from the winter buds, but the staminate catkins were apparently 

 still in their winter condition. This clump of hazel has the 

 largest and tallest shoots of any specimens known to the 

 writer in Greater New York. Measurements showed the tallest 

 shoots to be about twelve feet high and about \Yo inches in 

 diameter at base. Reports of larger individuals would be wel- 

 comed. For this date the other evidences of approaching spring 

 were very few. Of course colonies of skunk cabbage in flower 

 were seen in the swamp: and, incidentally, the poison sumach 

 was observed to be plentiful throughout the swamp. The red 

 maple had opened its flower buds by only a small crevice, but 

 the silver maple found planted along the streets of Flushing 

 was pushing out its stigmas. Returning past the Park Lake, 

 the party inspected the interesting rare trees in the upper Park 

 on the hill — Parrotia persica not yet in flower, Cornus Konsa, 

 Cercidiphyllum, Acanthopanax ricinijolius, etc. Ilex crenata was 

 found to have suffered considerably, probably from the extreme 

 cold of the winter. 



Arthur Harmount Graves 



March 18 to Hogenxamp Mountain 



The principal object of the field meeting was a large colony 

 of the "Iceland Moss" lichen, Cetraria islandica, on the ledges 

 southwest of Island Pond, in the western part of the Harriman 

 Section of the Palisades Interstate Park. This colony, the larg- 

 est in our range, except occurrences on Napeague Beach, Mon- 

 tauk Point, L. I., was brought to light, as many other interest- 



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