THE FLORA OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. 521 
oughness and exactness of which she is capable. Nature’s contriv- 
ances for the maintenance of life in all its wonderful and varied 
phases are inexhaustible, and we are ever laying down rules and 
theoretical laws, only to find them violated and upset, as we more 
truly interpret her ways. She is as watchful of the myriad invisi- 
ble atoms that mantle o’er the pond with green, or of the unseen 
swarms that fill the air “though one transparent vacancy it seems,” 
as she is of the higher forms of life. Plastic, she conforms in 
every conceivable aud inconceivable way to the wants of her 
immense family. She shows us 
& The ant’s pate the realm of bees; 
n common all their stores capes, 
And ana ay without och know 
And these forever, tho’ a monarch re 
ign, 
Their separate cells si properties maintain,” 
and calls loudly on us to read aright and solve her yet many un- 
told secrets. 
THE FLORA OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. 
BY PROF. J. W. CHICKERING, JR. 
A few notes of a recent botanical trip to the Dismal Swamp, 
that romance of our geographies and Moore’s ballad, giving its 
characteristic flora, with the species found in flower, may not be 
wanting in interest. 
Sunrise, on the morning of April 11th, found our party of two, 
Mr. William H. Seaman ôf Washington, and myself, just ready 
to make the landing at Old Point Comfort. A stroll before 
breakfast, for a mile or two along the sandy point, brought us 
to small groves of pitch pine (Pinus rigida), interspersed with 
thickets of dwarf live oak (Quercus virens var. maritima), here 
reaching its northern limit, while inside the fortress the true 
live oak attains quite a large size. The prickly pear (Opuntia 
vulgaris), is scattered along the sand, and on one almost inac- 
cessible edge of the rampart displays its reddish fruit. Along 
the ramparts occur the bright blue spikes of the grape hyacinth 
(Muscari botryoides), with Lamium amplexicaule, Sisymbrium 
Thaliana and vicia. A walk of a couple of miles to Hampton 
