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I had intended to have gone to the base of Bridal \'eil, but 

 found the s\vampy woods about a mile southeast of Aleadowdale 

 so interesting that I spent about five hours reading beside a fine 

 spring, with a smudge fire to keep the mosquitoes partly ofi. 

 What is more delightful than to breathe the smoke of an outdoor 

 fire, and to watch it circle through the trees? A half rock fire- . 

 place was built ; and on a fire was laid a few moist pieces of wood. 

 Hermit thrushes, blue jays, crows and many other birds. 



Visited an old forsaken house, wood-colored and with a long, 

 low shingle roof. Meadows stand high with grass. Several ripe 

 strawberries. While at the spring a man came for water, and 

 later a foreign woman, barefoot, who could not speak much 

 English. I am told that floods in the spring are partly the cause 

 of the embankment along the lower course of Black creek. 

 The boulders form a bank four or five feet high, especially along 

 the bank, opposite the sharp angle of the stream. 



A fine lot of Cypripediiim reginae Walt., flowering three weeks 

 earlier than last season, was found in the swamp woods. Much 

 Toxicodendron vernix (L.) Ktze. grows in this swamp, but to 

 neither poison sumac or poison ivy am I susceptible. Twenty 

 plants of the showy lady's-slipper were brought back to the 

 city, and I was poisoned, by the volatile oil from the hairs, on 

 the wrists of both arms, as it was a warm day. The poison was 

 troublesome for about a week, and relieved in part by applica- 

 tions of strong alcohol. Miss Alice E. Bacon in Rhodora 4: 

 94-97. May 1902 gives a good account of Cypripediiim poison- 

 ing; also in Vt. Bot. Club Bull. 4: 13-14- ^P"! I909- 



Along the roadside and in dry fields about a mile southeast 

 of Meadowdale the following plants: Pinus rigida Mill.; Carex 

 straminea Willd.; Unifolium canadense (Desf.) Greene; Com- 

 andra umhellata (L.) Nutt.; Arenaria serpyllifolia L.; Rosa 

 rubiginosaL.; Vitis vulpina L.; Cornus Amomiini M'lW.; Cormis 

 femina Mill. (C. candidissima Marsh.); flowering dogwood, 

 Cynoxylon fioridum (L.) Raf . ; Gaylussacia haccata (Wang.) C. 

 Koch {G. resinosa (Ait.) T. & G.); Polycodium stamineum (L.) 

 Greene, not rare; Lysimachia quadrifolia L.; Convolvulus spitha- 

 maeus L.; Diervilla Diervilla (L.) MacM.; and in a meadow 

 Hieracium aurantiacum L. and Hieracium florentinum All. 



