FIELD TRIPS OF THE Cl.VB 



Trip of May 22-24 to "The Pines," 

 Branchville, New Jersey 



The rapid succession of geological formations in this delight- 

 ful region of northwestern New Jersey still makes it possible for 

 any botanist to find much of interest: the limestone ridge on 

 which the hotel stands, with its ledges which shelter rock ferns 

 such as Asplenium cryptolepis, Pellaea atropurpurea and Camp- 

 tosorus rhizophyllus; the high sandstone escarpment to the east- 

 ward with purple-flowering clematis, and the intervening gorge 

 with its perpetually cool boulder slopes supporting a rich growth 

 of hemlock, red-fruited elder, and a variety of ferns, among them 

 Goldie's; the dry shale hilltops with a profusion of dwarf 

 Amelanchier and Viburnum. Even in this often-visited area, 

 surprises are constantly appearing, and we can now report a 

 most unusual sedge, new to New Jersey and to the Torrey Club 

 range. It is a northern species, Carex Backii (C. durifolia of 

 Britton & Brown's Illustrated Flora), growing in clumps a foot 

 in diameter, with narrow glossy leaves and an inflorescence 

 enveloped by gigantic bracts; its nearest New York outposts 

 are, so far as I have been able to discover, in Jefferson and St. 

 Lawrence Counties, and otherwise it approaches us closely only 

 in southwestern Vermont, and on Mount Toby near Amherst, 

 Massachusetts. The colony, growing on the shaded limestone 

 ridge about a hundred yards north of the hotel, consists of only 

 a dozen plants. 



In woodlands adjacent to the hotel grounds, one finds 

 abundant colonies of the larger yellow Lady Slipper and two 

 interesting liliacous plants, Chamaelirium luteum and Melan- 

 thium latijolium, clumps of the low grass-like Scirpiis planifolius , 

 and occasional patches of Carex gracilescens Steud., one of the 

 uncommon segregates of C. laxiflora. Among the plants found 

 around an old quarry a half mile south of Branchville were 

 Sisyrinchium mucronatum and Convolvulus spithamaeus, the 

 latter not yet in flower. 



As a flying squadron of automobiles, we proceeded on Satur- 

 day afternoon to Moody's Rock, a somewhat inaccessible re- 

 treat among the eroded limestones just to the northwest of 



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