FIELD TRIPS OF THE CLUB 



Field Trip of the Torrey Botanical Club, Sunday, April 21, 

 1929. Nineteen members of the club and friends met at the 

 Dyckman Street Ferry for a trip along the Palisades, in spite 

 of threats of rain. The threat was fulfilled with a few showers 

 which culminated in a steady rain about the time the party 

 started for home. 



Along the slopes above the path many spring flowers were 

 found: — rue anemone, blood root, dutchmans' breeches, 

 wild strawberry and chickweed. The common horsetail, Eq- 

 uisetum arvense, was abundant, the fertile stems all withered, 

 having shed their spores, and in one place a quantity of the 

 winter horsetail, Equisetiim hyemale, the stems, some of them 

 over three feet long, all of the previous summer. Cherry trees, 

 mostly relics of the time when homes were scattered on the 

 occasional level spaces below the Palisades, were in blossom, 

 as were the forsythia, Japanese barberry and Japanese quince. 

 Here and there small peach trees were masses of pink, these 

 apparently sprung from stones thrown away by picnickers. 



Lunch was eaten below Buttermilk Falls. Against the sides 

 of the cliff several shrubs of shad bush were in bloom. After 

 a short time spent in studying rocks, the party climbed to the 

 top along a long disused road. After wandering through the. 

 oak woods the party walked around the depression known as 

 the Keldars. Along the sides of the swamp that fills the Keldars 

 and by the brook which makes the falls, below which lunch had 

 been eaten, spring beauties and dogtooth violets were in blos- 

 som, though nodding their heads and half closed because of 

 the lack of sunshine. A few blue violets and one patch of white 

 were found in the damp ground and some of the downy yellow 

 violet in the drier woods. The unfolding plicate leaves of the 

 white hellebore were in sharp contrast with the half developed 

 skunk cabbage. Cinnamon, interrupted and royal ferns were 

 found unrolling their fronds. In the water were several clumps 

 of golden club, Orontium aquaticum, the yellow spikes of flowers 

 showing for an irich and a half or two inches above the water. 

 This was the only uncommon flower found. In the swamp of 

 the Keldars the heart-leaved willow were in blossom, both the 

 staminate and pistillate. 



The members of the party also enjoyed the abundant bird 



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