93 



live in one of the little chalets up on the side of Corcovaflo, 

 surrounded by the virgin forest. 

 The New York Botanical Garden, 

 Bronx Park, N. Y. C. 



WATER PLANTS OF THE KANAWAUKE LAKES 



George T. Hastings 



The Kanawauke Lakes are a group of three small lakes between 

 Rockland and Orange Counties, New York, in the Bear Moun- 

 tain-Harriman section of the Palisades Interstate Park. Only 

 one of these, the First Lake, is natural. This was formerly 

 known as Little Long Pond. When the other lakes were formed 

 by damming the outlet stream in 1914 the level of the First 

 Lake was raised about three feet. The lakes are connected by 

 short channels some eight feet wide in the narrowest places. 

 First Lake is about half a mile long, Second and Third Lakes a 

 little less than one mile each. All of them are narrow and com- 

 paratively shallow. The current from First Lake through the 

 others is slight, even in spring and early summer when the water 

 is high, later in the season there is practically no current except 

 that caused by the wind. On the shores of the lakes are located 

 a group of some twenty camps where about ten thousand boy 

 scouts spend from two to eight weeks during the summer. There 

 is, consequently, a good deal of rowing on the lakes, while a 

 number of motor boats make daily trips from the headquarters 

 building at the junction of the Second and Third Lakes to each 

 of the camps. 



It would seem as if the current, supplemented by the move- 

 ments of the boats, would have resulted during the ten years 

 since the dam was built in a fairly uniform distribution of the 

 water plants of the lakes. This is very far from being the case. 

 The original lake has an abundant flora, the shallower water 

 everywhere, including the areas submerged when the level was 

 raised, being crowded with plants and the new shore line bordered 

 uniformly by water or marsh plants. The Second Lake is almost 

 as well supplied with plants at the end nearest First Lake, but 

 further down the number both of species and individuals de- 

 creases. In Third Lake there are few plants, the greatest 



