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Only New Jersey Stand of Sibbaldiopsis Tridentata 

 Destroyed 



The only occurrence of Sibbaldiopsis {Potentilla) tridentata, 

 the Three Toothed Cinquefoil, in the State of New Jersey, 

 seems likely to be entirely obliterated, by the construction 

 of a monument to the soldiers and sailors of New Jersey, on 

 the summit of High Point, on Kittatiny Mountain. This 

 sturdy alpine-arctic plant, which is to me closely associated in 

 the mind's eye of memory, with high summits all along the 

 Appalachian Ranges, from Mount Katahdin, Maine, to Mount 

 Pisgah, in North Carolina, formerly flourished in a space per- 

 haps 200 feet square, on the summit of High Point, the highest 

 place in New Jersey, at an elevation of 1825 feet above sea. 

 So far as I know it was the only occurrence of the plant between 

 the Taconics at the New York-Massachusetts-Connecticut 

 corner, and the higher summits of the Blue Ridge in northern 

 Virginia, above 4,000 feet, in the area of the proposed Shenan- 

 doah National Park, with the exception of a small stand cover- 

 ing only a few square yards, on the summit of Mount Beacon, 

 in the Highlands of the Hudson, opposite Newburgh, N. Y., at 

 an elevation of 1640 feet. 



I recall enjoying the sight of the plant, in bloom, several 

 years ago, before High Point became a park and while it was 

 still part of the estate of the late Col. Anthony R. Kuser, who 

 gave his estate, in 1923, to New Jersey. In his will, filed since 

 his death a few months ago. Col. Kuser bequeathed $50,000 

 to erect a sort of Bunker Hill monument, 200 feet high, as a 

 war memorial on the summit of the Point. I was there on April 

 27, and found the summit covered with blocks of light gray 

 Vermont granite, which are to rise in the tower above the red- 

 dish gray Devonian sandstones and conglomerates of the ridge. 

 A fifty foot square base of concrete, heaps of blasted rock, water 

 tanks, construction sheds, etc, covered all of the area where 

 Sibbaldiopsis once grew and I could not find a single plant re- 

 maining. Possibly some may survive after the work is done and 

 the debris of construction cleared, but it seems unlikely. 

 Of course there is plenty of the species on New England summits 

 but as this was the only stand of the plant in New Jersey, it 

 seems unfortunate, from the point of view of that portion of 

 the public including botanists, that one of them was not at 



