TORREYA 



August, 1917. 

 Vol. 17 No. 8 



THE NATIVE PLANT POPULATION OF NORTHERN 

 QUEENS COUNTY, LONG ISLAND 



Roland M. Harper 



In the January number of Torreya the writer sketched the 

 conditions of vegetation in the unglaciated portion of Kings and 

 Queens Counties, in the western part of Long Island. The 

 present paper deals in a similar manner with an area adjoining 

 that on the north, namely, the glaciated portion of Queens 

 County; and the explanation given in the former paper of the 

 methods of gathering and digesting the facts will not need to 

 be repeated here. 



In the glaciated portion of Kings County (Brooklyn) there are 

 now about 40,000 inhabitants per square mile, and consequently 

 no natural vegetation worth mentioning other than small areas 

 of tidal marsh; but in the corresponding portion of Queens, 

 which although a part of New York City since 1898 has not 

 over 5,000 inhabitants per square mile on the average, nearly 

 10 per cent, of the area, or five or six square miles, is still covered 

 with essentially natural vegetation, which is well worth studying. 

 Almost every remaining patch of forest as much as fifty acres 

 in extent was examined by the writer during the past season, 

 and some in earlier years, beginning about 1907. The statistics 

 of the native plant population given farther on are therefore 

 believed to be reasonably accurate as far as they go. 



Geology and soil. — In Long Island City there are a few out- 

 crops of gneiss (which probably once supported some rock- 

 loving plants not found elsewhere on the island). Farther east 

 the formation immediately under the glacial drift is Cretaceous, 

 but it does not appear at the surface within our limits and has 

 no perceptible influence on soil or topography. The surface 

 material is glacial drift many feet thick, composed of clay, sand, 

 [No. 7, Vol. 17 of Torreya, comprising pp. 111-129, was issued 18 July, 1917I 



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