93 



today. Owing to the fact that even during the summer it 

 never thaws to any depth the ground is wet and boggy. Sphag- 

 nums, Cladionas, and Polytrichums abound, while here and there 

 are seen scattered clumps of shrubs — Chamaedaphne, Andro- 

 meda, Ledum, Betula pumila, Myrica Gale, Alnus incana, and 

 the like — interspersed with such forms as Vaccinium Oxycoccus, 

 Potentilla palustris, Chiogenes, Drosera, Menyanthes, Scheuch- 

 zeria, Eriophorum, Cyperiis, and other sedges. Upon the higher 

 levels, and perhaps upon the moraine itself, there may be groups 

 of trees — firs, spruces, and tamaracks — but nowhere is there the 

 faintest resemblance to the present day vegetation of the Long 

 Island uplands. Such a picture is admittedly fanciful, but to 

 the mind of the writer it approximates the actual conditions 

 which must have prevailed at that time. 



The final withdrawal of the glaciers from this region left the 

 topography of Long Island and Connecticut in much the condi- 

 tion that now exists. As the ice front retreated northward 

 there doubtless followed immediately in its wake, wherever soil 

 conditions were suitable, such a tundra formation as the one 

 depicted above, with the advance guard of the coniferous forest, 

 which was destined to occupy temporarily the freshly exposed 

 land areas, but with a few miles in the rear. With the gradual 

 reestablishment of a milder climate and the contemporaneous 

 thawing and drainage of the ground, which proved fatal to the 

 tundra vegetation, the environment once more became suitable 

 for a temperate flora, and an invasion of plants from the south 

 was inaugurated. In the struggle for the possession of the new 

 territory which must have ensued when these southern invaders 

 began their march northward the boreal element for a time doubt- 

 less maintained its own. But partly as a result of decreased 

 vitality under the changed climatic and soil conditions the arctic 

 flora was unable to cope successfully with the more vigorous and 

 adaptable temperate vegetation, so that eventually it was in 

 large part either exterminated or forced northward, with the 

 exception of a relatively small number of forms which had taken 

 refuge, figuratively speaking, in bogs where their descendants 

 still survive. 



