Mrs. Cora R. Smith and Mr. W. H. Husk had arranged to 

 make all of the party comfortable at The Pines, though owing 

 to the large number the "annex" had to be opened and a few 

 late registrants quartered in the village about a mile away. The 

 woods about the inn were beautiful as always, masses of colum- 

 bine still in blossom, the yellow lady's slippers in full bloom and 

 a few flowers on the purple clematis {Clematis verticillaris) , while 

 the limestone loving ferns — walking, wall rue, cliff brake, maid- 

 enhair spleenwort were in the crevices where the members of 

 other outings had learned to look for them. 



George T. Hastings 



Trip of May 31 to Branch ville. Conn. 



The most interesting novelty found on the field trip on 

 May 31, 1937, at Branchville, Conn., led by Miss Eleanor 

 Friend, was the Featherfoil, or Water Violet, HoUonia inflata, 

 found in a new station for Connecticut, and for the range of the 

 Club, in Weir's Pond, near the border of Ridgefield and Wilton, 

 south of Branchville. Mr. E. B. Harger, President of the Con- 

 necticut Botanical Society, who was in the party, said that it 

 was the third station reported in Connecticut, the others being 

 in the vicinity of New Haven. Norman Taylor, in his Flora of 

 the Vicinity of New York, New York Botanical Garden, 1915, 

 records it as local in the coastal region of our area, and in Bergen 

 and Hudson Counties, N. J. One of the Bergen County stations 

 was, I think, in the swamp near Moonachie, where Magnolia 

 virginiana, Rhododendron maximum and Chamaecyparis thyoides 

 still persist, though threatened with extermination. 



The colony in Weir's Pond is fairly numerous, about thirty 

 plants in various stages of development being counted, near 

 the dam at the north end, and in shallow water on the east 

 side. There may be more in waters toward the center of the 

 pond. A few were found in bloom, and specimens were sent to 

 the New York and Brooklyn Botanic Botanical Gardens, on 

 behalf of the local flora committee of the club. 



I have not read any account, of the mechanics of this inter- 

 esting aquatic member of the Primulaceae, but it apparently 

 shares the habit of some other aquatic plants, like the Bladder- 

 worts, in having a winter resting stage, on the bottom of quiet 

 waters, and, when spring comes, the flower stem develops, and 

 extends, its hollow, inflated character supplying a buoy which 



