408 Appendix: Seventh Report on the Survey of 



footstalks, and are more numerous and dense at the top of the stem. 

 The leaves are ovate and sharply toothed on the margin and pointed 

 at the apex. Its congener and companion on the open summit of 

 Mount Marcy is the Alpine Goldenrod, Solidago Virga-aurea v. 

 alpina J hut this does not accompany it in the woods. The flowers 

 of the two are very similar, but the stems of the Alpine Golden- 

 rod are much shorter, rarely a foot in length, half prostrate or 

 scarcely erect, and the leaves are either blunt or barely acute, and 

 never taper out into a long, sharp point. They are more narrow 

 than those of the Mountain Goldenrod, and gradually taper down- 

 wards to their point of attachment to the stein. The Mountain 

 Goldenrod occurs also on the highest summits of the Catskill Moun- 

 tains, but the Alpine Goldenrod does not follow it there. 



Another companion of the Mountain Goldenrod, and one which 

 usually accompanies it among the balsams, is the White Hellebore* 

 Veratrum virlde. It is sometimes called Indian Poke. The two 

 grow together in great abundance about the camp near Lake Tear. 

 The White Hellebore is a coarse and unsightly plant, with a stout 

 leafy stem two or three feet high. It bears at its top a loose cluster 

 or panicle of numerous rather small, greenish or yellowish-green 

 flowers of little beauty. Its leaves are large, parallel-veined, some- 

 what plaited, and are attached to the stem by a clasping or sheath- 

 ing base. Its forbidding aspect and dangerous qualities give it an 

 unenviable reputation. Nevertheless it is said to be nearty or quite 

 equal to the European Hellebore as an antidote to currant worms 

 and other noxious insects. It is not strictly a mountain plant, but 

 grows freely in low wet lands and extends far southward. 



The Tufted Clubrush, Scirpus ccespitosus, grows, as its name 

 indicates, in dense tufts, after the manner of the Common Bull- 

 rush. The plants are slender and wiry, and are usually six to eight 

 inches high. They bear at their tips a small, yellowish-brown, bud- 

 like spike of inconspicuous flowers. It is abundant on the summit 

 of Mount Marcy, but occurs, also, on nearly all the high peaks and 

 slides of the Adirondacks. The fierce blasts of wind, as they 

 sweep over the summits and blow through these tufts of rushes, 

 produce a peculiar, shrill, whistling noise. Two or three fungi 

 inhabit the dead or dying stems of this rush, of which Peziza scir- 

 pina and Pnccinia Scirpi are examples. 



The grasses are well represented on Mount Marcy, seven species 

 occurring there. Four of these, the Bentgrass, Kichardson's 

 Feathergrass, the Loose-flowered Poa and the Alpine Holygrass, I 



