114 



Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic and Bergen counties in New Jersey 

 (probably the Bergen county record is an old one and it no longer 

 exists there). He also says it is not found on Tertiary formations, 

 is rare on the Cretaceous, and is scattered and local on the older 

 formations, "most common on limestone." The two stations where 

 I have found it are along the contact between the sandstones of the 

 Kittatiny ridge and the limestones or limy shales of the valley east- 

 ward. It was very handsome and conspicuous in the occurrences 

 found on June i6, suggesting at a little distance some kind of tall 

 aster, and I remember that the first time I saw it, I was puzzled to 

 decide its family relationship and it required considerable search 

 in the manuals to run it down to the Rosaceae. The location is 

 about seventy-five miles from New York, by the motor highway 

 via Pompton, Butler, Newfoundland, Franklin, North Church, 

 Branchville, to Culver Lake, then southwest on the dirt road along 

 the eastern foot of the mountain, past Owassa Lake. 



Raymond H. Torrey 



Vagnera stellata Growing in Dune Sand 



A fairly numerous and apparently thrifty colony of Vagnera 

 stellata, (Smaller False Solomon's Seal) which is rare in the ter- 

 ritory covered by the Torrey Botanical Club, in my own observa- 

 tion and is listed as "rare and local" in Norman Taylor's catalogue 

 of plants of that territory, occurs in Sunken Meadow State Park, 

 of the Long Island State Park system, on the north shore of the 

 island, near King's Park. The station is interesting, not only be- 

 cause of the rarity of the plant, but because of the arid conditions. 

 Both Britton and Gray speak of its habitat as in moist woods or 

 other moist places, but this Long Island occurrence is in wind blown 

 sand, about ten feet above the highest storm tides on the beach just 

 below it. Back of the beach is a low, narrow ridge, partly a con- 

 tinuation of a moraine lobe of gravel and sand, from a higher mass 

 to the west, and partly wind blown sand to a depth of two or three 

 feet on the top of the ridge. Other plants are bayberry, beach plum, 

 Solidago maritima, choke cherry, red cedar, post and white oaks, 

 the oaks stunted and gnarled from their exposed position, bearing 

 the brunt of west and north winds across Long Island Sound. The 

 colony of Vagnera stellata, numbering perhaps fifty plants, of which 



