18 
deciduous trees, a blanket of four inches of show covering mosses 
and ferns. The dead stems of the Purple Loosestrife, Lythrum 
Salicaria, on brooks and small swamps, high up in the preserve, 
at elevations 400 feet above the Hudson, indicated that this 
adventive plant, which has spread from whatever coastal point 
it was established at seventy-five or one hundred years ago, all 
along the Atlantic seaboard from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 
the Potomac, must be spread by other means than tidal or fresh 
waters, for it could scarcely have been seeded in these high 
swamps except by birds. It is now well established on many 
tributaries of the Hudson, miles from their mouths and 200 to 
500 feet above the river. One notices red-winged blackbirds 
feeding on its seeds in the brackish marshes along the Hudson 
where it is so common, and it seems probable that these or other 
birds carry it to the streams and swamps back of the river. 
The geology of this reservation is interesting, especially the 
inclusions of schist, limestone and gneiss, in the diorite which in- 
vaded and swamped the older rocks, and absorbed all but these 
small remnants which are to be seen in the glaciated surfaces of 
the black, weathered diorite. Some of the diorite ledges and 
some boulders of the same rock which were transported short 
distances by the ice, and now lie perched in conspicuous places, 
have a jointed appearance, something like the basalts of the 
Watchungs in New Jersey, with cracks frequently separating at 
120 degree angles so as to make approximately incipent hex- 
agonal columns. 
The chairman of the field committee is now making up the 
field schedule for 1931, and welcomes the aid and suggestions of 
all members of the club. A number of winter and spring excul- 
sions will be held, to be announced in the weekly bulletin of the 
New York Academy of Sciences. Volunteers are invited for any 
Saturday, Sunday, holiday or week-end, from now to next De- 
cember. The printed schedule will appear about May 1. It's 
desired to make the schedule richer and more varied than ever 
before, and offers of leadership in any field of botany, especially 
in mosses, lichens, grasses, sedges and liverworts, in addition to 
the more common and popularly known forms of vegetable life, 
will be welcomed. 
RayMOND H. TORREY _ 
Chairman, Field Commitee 
