99 



Palmaghat, and within a couple of miles we came upon large masses 

 of Corema, in perfect condition for collecting, with the pollen on 

 the staminate plants scattering in golden clouds at the slightest 

 breeze. Following the trail farther south, we descended into a gully 

 with a brook, and climbing again, along the ledges of the acute- 

 angled point made by the southeast front of the mountain, a 400- 

 foot cliff, and the eastern side of Palmaghat, where ice still re- 

 mained in the crevices 50 feet below the brink, reached the promon- 

 tory known by the picturesque name of "Gertrude's Nose." Ac- 

 cording to A. T. Clearwater's "History of Ulster County" the 

 name is from the most prominent facial adornment of Gertruyd 

 Brum, wife of Jacobus Bruin, who settled in the Wallkill Valley 

 nearby about 1665. Her neighbors seem to have thought it was 

 merited. Here Corema was in great profusion and fine condition. 

 It extended from the clifif edge north along the ledges, among 

 the thin pitch pines and scrub oak, covering at least 200 acres of 

 the mountain top. It grew only, as Redfield said, "in rupibus sili- 

 ceis," on the white, almost purely siliceous quartzite, known as 

 Shawangunk Grit, which forms the cap rock of the Shawangunk 

 Mountains and also of their extension southwestward in the Kit- 

 tatiny Mountains of New Jersey. 



The plant was in much finer condition, sturdier and denser, than 

 in the station in the West Plains, in the Jersey Pine Barrens. It 

 appeared not to have suffered from ground fires, such as often 

 destroy patches of Corema in the Barrens, probably because Ger- 

 trude's Nose is islanded from fires, by vertical cliffs on the west 

 and south, and by a wet swale on the north, and the vegetation to 

 the east or northeast, its only unprotected side, is too thin to en- 

 courage a fire, even if one started from that direction, which would 

 be unusual. It seems, therefore, to have a permanent sanctuary in 

 this location. Specimens were sent to the New York and Brooklyn 

 Botanical Gardens and to the Gray Herbarium in Cambridge, 

 Mass. 



Another interesting plant growing about the stems of Corema 

 was the boreal lichen, Cetraria islandica ("Iceland Moss.") which 

 is rare and found only on high, open summits, in our latitude. 



The Gertrude's Nose station for Corema Conradii is not hard 

 to reach, with an automobile. The route is 9-W, from the New 

 Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge, to Newburgh ; Route 

 32 to Modena, and 55, west, via Gardiner, to the top of Shawan- 



