49 



the same holds good for at least some of the adjacent counties. 

 It occurs in rich woods, open woods, edges of woods, thickets 

 and clearances, but, so far as observations go, it is invariably 

 associated with woodlands, past or present. Where it now grows 

 in more open situations, it seems either to have spread from 

 woods or to have survived long after deforestation. What 

 Wiegand and Eames say concerning the habitat of this plant in 

 Central New York, in the Cayuga Lake Basin, applies in no 

 small measure to its manner of occurrence in Northwestern New 

 York, namely : "Unlike most adventive plants, it occurs usually 

 in wild places that little suggest such introduction." Its occur- 

 rence also in Erie County and adjacent territory in situations 

 little suggesting introduction from abroad, tends to revive the 

 issue as to its indigenousness, particularly in view of the posi- 

 tive pronouncement, made at the time of its first discovery in 

 Buffalo, that the species was "certainly indigenous." 



In the matter of habitat, the plant does not appear to prefer 

 any particular kind of association, being equally at home in 

 beech, oak, or mixed woods. In rich moist woods it seems to 

 shun wet situations and favor hummocks, knolls or slopes. It is 

 frequently found on wooded hillsides, where, on more horizontal 

 projections, soil carried down from above may accumulate. 

 In fact, a moderate superdeposition of soil has been observed 

 to be a decidedly favorable factor in almost any situation. It 

 would seem that the underground portions of the plant have a 

 certain inherent vitality. 



Apparently indifferent to the chemical composition of the 

 soil, Serapias Helleborine grows in the humus of rich woods, 

 along shaley ravines, in clayey loam, or on limestone substrat- 

 um. At Harris Hill, Erie County, it is found in the earth-filled 

 crevices of a limestone outcrop. At Indian Falls, Genesee 

 County, it has been observed along a hillside in the talus de- 

 posited between fragments of limestone. Several slender and 

 almost prostrate specimens were here found growing from 

 underneath limestone slabs, which had to be overturned to 

 reach the roots. Occasionally plants are encounterd in rather 

 unexpected situations, as in the town of Amherst, Erie County, 

 where a little colony was discovered growing in black muck, in a 

 copse of trembling aspens overshadowed by a solitary elm and 

 surrounded by swampy terrain, with evidences about of more 

 extensive forestation in the past. 



