FIELD TRIPS OF THE CLUB 



Trip of Sunday, February 28, 1937 



An innovation in conducting field trips of the Torrey Botani- 

 cal Club, which the field committee plans to make general dur- 

 ing the 1937 season, proved very enjoyable on the trip led by 

 Mr. G. G. Nearing, in the vicinity of Ridgewood, Bergen 

 County, N. J. The morning and early afternoon were devoted 

 to field study in woods and swamps, north and west of Ridge- 

 wood, the afternoon to indoor study, with high-powered micro- 

 scopes, of lichen spores. 



The party assembled in automobiles at Mr. Nearing's 

 rhododendron nursery, on East Ridgewood Avenue, near Para- 

 mus Road, Ridgewood, at 10 a.m. They went first to an old 

 farm owned by Mr. Nearing's family north of Ridgewood, where 

 among the gray birches and red cedars, were found three Lyco- 

 podiums, L. complanatum, clavatum and obscurum; several 

 Cladoniae, including C. cristatella, fif. Beauvoisii, vestita and 

 scyphulifera; C. mitrula; C. horhonica; C. coniocraea, ff. cer- 

 atodes and pycnotheliza; C. tenuis ; C. suhcariosa ; and C. apodo- 

 carpa. Aspidium cristatum was found among other ferns, in a 

 swamp, with plenty of mosses, including much of Georgia pel- 

 lucid a. 



The party then moved to a swamp, north of Midland Park, 

 which was visited last year under the leadership of Mr. and 

 Mrs. J. Van Saun, which is interesting for its survivals of 

 species now rare in Bergen County, inluding Larix laricina, 

 Sarracenia purpurea, Drosera rotundifolia, Vaccinium macro- 

 carpon, and Coptis trifolia, and which is rich in mosses, and liver- 

 worts, among the latter Pallavicinia and Cephalozia. In ex- 

 ploring this swamp we moved around to its south end which we 

 had not visited before, and found it contained about a dozen 

 specimens, none very large, but with some small natural repro- 

 duction, of a spruce, probably Picea mariana, although in the 

 absence of cones, we were not quite sure. This is probably the 

 last remaining station for spruce, growing wild, in Bergen 

 County, as former stations for P. mariana and P. riihens {rubra) 

 on the east side of the Hackensack Meadows, near New Dur- 

 ham, and on the west slope of the Palisades are now probably 

 extinct, due to cultivation and residential and industrial de- 



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