22 BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN MEMOIRS 



Aster dumosus 

 Leptilon canadense 

 Erigeron pulchellus 

 Erechtites hieracifolia. 



These, with the primary and secondary species, make an essentially 

 complete list of the commoner herbs of the Downs. Other species could 

 be included,* and more undoubtedly will be found, but for our general 

 purpose of presenting as complete a picture of Montauk vegetation as 

 possible, these will serve. So far as the Downs are concerned, Baptisia 

 tinctoria is the tallest of these herbs and becomes therefore much more 

 conspicuous than its actual frequency would suggest. f Practically all the 

 other species, at least so far as their wind-swept habitat at Montauk has 

 developed them, are low and hug the ground. Indeed so closely is this 

 done, so perfectly does the open Downs' vegetation cover the hills, that, 

 with the exception of these sentinel-like domes of Baptisia tinctoria, the 

 hills of grassland look from a distance as though they were mown. Every 

 undulation of the ground is shown and almost nowhere, as in so many of 

 our landscapes, is the topography obscured by the vegetation. 



The beauty of the Downs vegetation, so relatively limited as to species, 

 and yet so perfectly fitted to its environment, should not blind us to the 

 fact that the region is within the general forest area of northeastern 

 America, that forest cover is found in considerable quantity in the Hither 

 Woods, the North Neck Woods, Point Woods, and in many of the kettle- 

 holes. Whether or not these bare downs were once covered with forest, 

 large areas of them today appear in a state of stable equilibrium. Woody 

 vegetation on these wind-swept hills appears next to impossible, and yet 

 there are evidences that some form of woody vegetation is making an 

 attempt to cover at least part of what is now grassland. 



There are to-day hundreds of tiny patches of "bush" scattered over the 

 Downs, some only a foot or two in diameter, others covering, especially in 



* One curious failure of a rather typically grassland plant to become established at 

 Montauk is the case of the bird's foot violet {Viola pedata). This plant, which occurs in 

 tremendous profusion on the Hempstead Plains, has never been recorded from Montauk. 



t Mrs. Theodore Conklin, who has lived on the Point for many years told the writer 

 (1920) that it is only since the Spanish American War in 1898, that Baptisia tinctoria has 

 been found on the Downs. She relates that a few years after the soldiers left, the autumn 

 and winter winds swept great quantities of the ' tumblers' against the side of " Third House," 

 her home for many years. This was unknown before 1898. The case of Cirsium horridulum 

 has already been mentioned, so that we have, within thirty years, two conspicuous plants 

 that have [perhaps only temporarily] usurped these Downs, without changing the domi- 

 nantly grassland character of the vegetation. 



