Vermont Botanical and Bird Clubs 33 



One of the loosestrifes, L^thrum Salicaria, was along most of the 

 brooks and edges of swampy places. It made me think of a trip by 

 automobile from Montreal to Quebec when it grew so thickly on the 

 opposite bank of the St. Lawrence as to look like a broad red ribbon. 

 The black medick, Medicago lupulina was ubiquitous. 



I have a fine specimen of rabbit's foot or stone clover from Pompeii. 



A species of mourning bride or scabiosa, Knautia sp.?, was also 

 everywhere in Italy and elsewhere on the continent with its pale lilac 

 heads. It looks like the Knautia arvensis that Mr. Ridlon found so 

 much of in Bennington grass land. I saw plenty of Mediterranean 

 heather on the Amalfi drive but was unable to get any. I secured one 

 plant of a different species on the Rigi. Wild clematis, like our 

 American Clematis virginiana, was common and very pretty, climbing 

 over other vegetation with its wreaths of white flowers. 



Chicory, Cichorium Intyhus, made the roadsides and fields as blue 

 as they are in Canada and are getting to be around Burlington. Other 

 plants which I knew were coltsfoot, Tussilago Farfara, willow herb, 

 EpiloMum hirsutum, bouncing bet, Saponaria officinalis, black mustard, 

 Brassica nigra, prickly lettuce, Lactuca Scariola var. integrata, rose- 

 colored and white yarrow, Achillea Millefolium, heal-all. Prunella vul- 

 garis, English plantain, Plantago lanceolata, tansy, Tanacetum, vulgare, 

 and butter and eggs, Linaria vulgaris. 



I was rather surprised to see so many of our common plants, but 

 when I stopped to think that the botany said that they were all ad- 

 ventive or naturalized from Europe, I understood. 



The only blackberry that I saw in Italy had a pink blossom and 

 very good fruit. Afterwards at Kew Gardens, near London, I saw a 

 double flowered form which was very ornamental. 



The big heads of the teasel, Dipsacus sylvestris, were prevalent 

 and between Paris and Brussels I noticed a cattail that looked like the 

 broad-leaved one, Typha latifolia. Weeds, like pigweed, Chenopodium, 

 and Amaranthus, docks, Rumex, of various species, goat's beard, Tra- 

 gopogon pratensis, a Silene, like our bladder campion, purslane, Portu- 

 laca oleracea, and various mustards were plentiful by roadsides and 

 in cultivated fields. 



On the Rigi, where we stayed overnight, I had a chance to see of 

 what the flora was made up. There were two species of dianthus, or 

 grass pinks, one having very much fringed petals, several kinds of 

 campanula, or bluebells, one reddish, one or two species of Thi/mus, 



