Parmelia Cladonia, a beautiful northern lichen, 

 found on Catskill summits 



Raymond H. Torrey 



Receipt from friends who sent lichens from the Adirondacks, 

 the Green Mountains of Vermont and from high summits in 

 Maine last summer, of a very beautiful foliose species, identi- 

 fied for me by Mrs. Gladys P. Anderson as Parmelia Cladonia, 

 started the writer on a search for the plant within the range of 

 the Torrey Botanical Club. He has been successful in finding it 

 in four stations on higher summits in the Catskills. Mrs. Ander- 

 son has found it on two others, so that it seems probable that it 

 may be found on many Catskills summits above 3500 feet, or 

 perhaps lower where conditions are favorable. 



When specimens from the Great Range in the Adirondacks, 

 collected by A. T. Shorey, of Brooklyn; from Jay Peak, in the 

 Green Mountains, collected by Mrs. Laura Woodward Abbott, 

 of Upper Montclair, N. J. ; and from northern Maine, by George 

 F. Dillman, of New York, sent to the writer, were referred to 

 Mrs. Anderson, she identified them, and remarked that the 

 species was reported about 25 years ago, by Mrs. Carolyn W. 

 Harris, of Brooklyn, from Panther Mt. in the Catskills, although 

 the specimen had not been preserved, and Mrs. Harris' report 

 was the only one recorded for our range. 



A climb of Peekamoose Mountain, in the southern Catskills, 

 last September, with Louis W. Anderson, of Elizabeth, N. J., 

 resulted in the discovery of Parmelia Cladonia in fairly ample 

 quanitity near the summit, from 3500 to 3860 feet. Another 

 expedition with Mr. Anderson to Big Indian Mountain, 3750 feet, 

 last November, disclosed it at 3500 feet on that summit, in great 

 quantitity on dead and living firs in a high swamp. 



An opportunity to check Mrs. Harris' report, for Panther 

 Mountain, was afforded on May 28, in a climb of that peak, 

 3750 feet, via Giant Ledge, 3250 feet. Guided by the directions 

 of C. T. Andrews, proprietor of the Valley View Cottage in 

 Oliverea, an easy ascent was made up a long hogback south of 

 Seymour Brook, a tributary of Esopus Creek, to the rock slide 

 on the west slope of the summit of Giant Ledge, where the 

 sandstone slabs were found to be covered with many Cladoniae. 



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