118 Union Bay 



on the campus, called "Frosh Pond" because it was fre- 

 quently used for "dunking" freshmen. Lilies which had been 

 put into this pond so clogged it that they were all cleaned 

 out and dumped on the edge of the bay, from which many 

 of them were rescued and planted by the manager. They 

 started slowly, possibly because they were raided by the 

 muskrats, but some of them held on 7 and now they fill the 

 spots considered most suitable and many other areas as well. 



We thus have three growing adventives in the district, 

 each of which has arrived in a different way— the bird's-foot 

 trefoil probably in ballast, the iris by escape from cultivation, 

 and the water lily by direct introduction. Each promises to 

 play an increasingly important part; each, though the process 

 may not be apparent to the observer, is unquestionably com- 

 peting with other marsh plants. 



A fourth plant, the loveliest in the marsh, has a local be- 

 ginning which is not altogether clear. In spite of its impres- 

 sive beauty and extremely wide distribution, nobody appears 

 to know how and just when it became established in the area. 

 The plant is known as the purple, or spiked, loosestrife, and 

 it now grows in swamps and wet places in many states of 

 the northern half of the United States. It is not native to the 

 United States but came from Europe where it is widely dis- 

 tributed and well known. It was established in the eastern 

 states and Canada long before it was known here. It may 

 have come to the West Coast from Europe or from the East. 

 There were only small patches when I first began canoeing 

 there, but now, next to the cattail, it dominates the area so 

 that in the blooming season the purple of its foot-long spikes 

 actually obscures, in many places, the foliage of the cattail. 

 The stems of this plant are square, or almost so, the leaves 

 opposite, or sometimes in whorls of three. The plants stand, 

 sometimes on wet ground, often in water a foot deep, and 

 massed so that their blooming frequently displays as much 

 as an acre of dark brilliance, set among the green of the cat- 



