THE VEGETATION OF MONTAUK 6l 



"Yesterday we experienced one of the most tremendous gales ever ex- 

 perienced in this cHmate. It blew a hurricane. Trees are strewed in every 

 direction about our streets. . . . The lighthouse on Montauk is so injured 

 that no light can be kept in it until the lantern be repaired." The same 

 paper said, on October ii, and on October i8, that the lighthouses on Gull 

 and Little Gull Islands were also out of commission, due to the storm. 



Mr. Gardiner reported to the writer that men who had visited Montauk 

 after the storm told him that much timber had been destroyed at the 

 Point Woods, and in fact, all over Montauk Point. But the blowing down 

 of trees such as unquestionably occurred can not have made very much 

 difference in the relative proportion of grassland and forest at Montauk. 

 The records already quoted show that from the earliest days there had al- 

 ways been, within historic times at least, large areas of Montauk in grass- 

 land. If anything, this storm would tend to increase the area of this. It 

 may well have blown down the tallest trees at the Point Woods, none of 

 which at present is over forty or fifty feet in height, — most of them much 

 lower. 



While the wind is the most striking of the climatic features of Montauk, 

 the peninsula is both cooler and drier than any other part of Long Island, 

 In an account of the climate of Long Island as it is related to the vegetation, 

 which will be presented elsewhere, the details of these factors are given. 

 Summarizing from them the Montauk records show the following: 



Temperature 



Mean temperature 49-5° whichis95.i%of the warmest Long Island station. 



Yearly effective tem- 

 perature, ^ total above 



43° 3536° which is 80.7% of the warmest Long Island station. 



Effective temperature be- 

 fore May 31 319° which is only 49.1% of the warmest Long Island 



station, and is the explanation of the "late spring" 

 at Montauk, which, in the flowering of certain 

 plants is from ten to fifteen days behind Brooklyn. 



Frostless period 218 days which is longer than for any other Long Island 



station. 



The retarding of spring and the length of the growing season at Montauk 

 are both affected by the temperature of the sea water. This is from 6 to 

 10° cooler at Montauk than at the western end of Long Island during the 

 period April 15 to June 9, while during the period from November 15 to 

 December 25, it is usually slightly warmer than for the western end of the 



