CHAPTER XI 



SWAMPS (INCLUDING PINE BARREN SWAMPS), BOGS, AND MARSHES 



"Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated 

 fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking 

 swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some 

 farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently 

 found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of imper- 

 meable and unfathomable bog — a natural sink in one corner of 

 it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I derive more of my 

 subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than 

 from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no richer 

 parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda 

 (Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tender places on the 

 earth's surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the 

 names of the shrubs which grow there — the high blueberry, 

 panicled andromeda, lambkill, azalea, and rhodora — all standing 

 in the quaking sphagnum. . . . Why not put my house, my parlor, 

 behind this plot instead of behind that meager assemblage of 

 curiosities, that poor apology for Nature and Art which I call my 

 front yard?" — From Thoreau's Excursions. 



The dividing line between this and the first chapter is often 

 faint, since the banks of streams may be marshy. 



Cat-tail Flag (Typha latifolia). Page 375- 



Narrow-leaved Cat-tail (T. angustifolia) . Page 375. Near 



the coast. 

 Arrow Grass (Triglochin maritima). Page 20. Salt marshes. 

 Water Arum (Calla palustris). Page 42. 

 Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). Page 21. 

 Yellow-eyed Grass (Xyris caroliniana). Page 149. Sandy 



shores and wet places. 

 (X. flexuosa). Page 147. Wet sandy soil. 

 (X .fimbriata) . Page 149. Wet pine barrens. 

 (X . arenicola) . Page 149. Wet pine barrens. 

 Bog Asphodel {N artheciuni americanum) . Page 149. Wet pine 



barrens. 

 Swamp Pink (Helonias bullata). Page 298. Rare and local. 

 Mountain Bellwort (Oakesiapuberiila) . Page 150. 



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