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seen. They were the cotyledons of plants of open ledges, Cory- 

 dalis sempervirens, Geranium carolianum, Saxifraga virginiensis, 

 and perhaps Phlox subulata. The parent plants appeared to 

 have been burned to nothing, roots and all, but they had ripened 

 their seeds before the blaze and scattered them on the ground. 

 A week after the fire there was a heavy rain, and the seeds 

 evidently have survived destruction by the searing heat, for 

 scores of tiny seed leaves were coming up in the blackened 

 humus. A box tortoise, found dead nearby, was not so fortun- 

 ate; the poor fellow had been roasted in his shell, before he 

 could escape the swift flames with his slow and clumsy gait. 



Down from the summit a bit, where bracken fern had been 

 thick, and where its drought-drie^ leaves burned like tinder, 

 the roots had survived in some places, and the plant was send- 

 ing up new fronds, as if it were April. This fire was said to have 

 been started deliberately by huckleberry pickers, who believe 

 such burnings cause the berry bushes to come in thick for a 

 while. The only berry fruits which appeared to have survived 

 and which lay in the burned ground, were those of the Choke- 

 berry, Pyriis arhutifolia, whose rather heavy pulpy covering of 

 the seeds had probably protected them so that they will sprout, 

 but they will do the huckleberry pickers no good. 



Members of the Torrey Botanical Club and of the Trail 

 Campers of America greatly enjoyed a visit to the gardens on 

 the estate of Clarence M. Lewis, banker, at Skyland, near 

 Sterlington, N.Y., Sunday, Sept. 14. The visit was arranged 

 by Mr. Charles Crowell, founder of the Trail Campers, who 

 have a lodge on Stony Brook, north of Sloatsburg, which has 

 been used by members of the Brooklyn Nature Club and other 

 nature students; and upon the invitation of Mr. Lewis, through 

 his superintendent, Mr. Kendall. Mr. Lewis has large numbers 

 of alpine species, obtained from M. Correvon, the Swiss spec- 

 ialist in such plants, which are doing well in the soils carefully 

 adapted to their needs. Scientific names are shown on stamped 

 metal tags, and the exhibit is very instructive. Mr. Lewis' 

 gardener has also made a sort of Nature Trail of native plants, 

 brought from the woods on his 2,000 acre estate, or from other 

 parts of the country. A great display of horticultural, named, 

 forms of an aster, the ancestors of which were our common New 

 England Aster, Aster novae-angliae, made a splendid sight. 



