The flora of the Watchung Mountains* 



Harold X. M olden ke 

 Part II — The Flora 



The Watchung Mountains, lying wholly within the Piedmont 

 phytogeographic province, whose geologic history we have just 

 reviewed, have a native flora which is, on the whole, quite 

 characteristic of this province, although doubtless the close 

 proximity of four other important phytogeographic provinces, 

 viz., the Coastal Plain, the New England, the Appalachian 

 \'alley, and the Appalachian Plateaus, has aided materially in 

 building up the remarkably rich flora which is to be found in 

 these hills. Far greater contributions, however, have come due 

 to the proximity of the area to the port of New York City, 

 through which so many scores of foreign plants have entered. 



\'ery representative of the region is the flora of that part of 

 the Watchung Mountains at the town of Watchung itself, and 

 in its immediate \'icinity. Here, in a total area of less than 25 

 square miles, the present writer has recorded no less than 1355 

 difterent species and varieties of wild plants, fully 85 per cent 

 of which can be found in an area of 5 square miles. ^ Although 

 he has worked in his spare time for the past 9 years on the 

 compilation of a complete list of the wild flora of this region, 

 the writer is nevertheless convinced that the recorded list is still 

 far from complete. If the cryptogams of the region could be 

 as thoroughly collected and as accurately identified as have the 

 phanerogams, the total for even this very small portion of the 

 area under discussion would most certainly mount to well above 

 two thousand species and varieties. Among the botanists who 

 have collected in the region should be mentioned William Henry 

 Leggett, Ezra Brainerd, Frank Tweedy, Nathaniel Lord Brit- 

 ton, Per Axel Rydberg, George \"alentine Nash, Kenneth Kent 



* A correction should be made in part I of this article, in the May-June 

 number of Torreya: on page 61, beginning on line 10 the sentence should read: 

 "and planed down in the Cretaceous and Tertiary- Periods (since late Creta- 

 ceous deposits are overlain by Tertiary' in southern New Jersey)." 



^ The observed flora of Watchung, N. J., and its immediate vicinity. Ed. 

 3. The Elsinore Press, Watchung, X. J. 1934. Also supplements. 



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