Josselyn Botanical Society 



29 



Botrychium ramosum; in a moist field near by Ophioglossum 

 vulgatum was found. 



On the margin of the bog at the head of the pond, where 

 Thuja occidentalis and Abies balsamea strove for dominance, 

 were scattered clumps of Rhododendron maximum, covering, 

 as was judged, a half acre of ground. The clumps were 

 dense and luxuriant, with many of the plants fully eight feet 

 in height. The plants observed on this visit were in dense 

 shade and no sign of inflorescence was to be found. In the 

 same bog were Glyceria pallida, var. Fernaldii, Carex pau- 

 per cula, var. irrigua, Calla palustris and Smilacina trifolia. 



Though the official sessions of the Society closed the 10th, 

 four members, Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Bean, Miss Sue Iy. Gor- 

 don and Mr. A. H. Norton, decided to devote another day, 

 the 11th, to a trip to Mount Bigelow. The day proved to be 

 cool and misty, but without rain, making the four-mile trip 

 from the state fire warden's camp, on the Dead River Road, 

 to the eastern peak most comfortable. 



During the glacial gravel period the torrent of the Dead 

 River Valley had found an eddy along the northerly foot of 

 Mount Bigelow and deposited huge kames, flat topped and 

 broad, but little broken by occasional peaked cones and the 

 later local streams from the mountain side, which have cut 

 their way across the kames in their descent to the Dead River. 

 This sandy plain is now pastured and barren of variety, 

 though Picea canadensis and Potentilla tridentata are conspicu- 

 ous by the roadside. 



Passing over this broad, sandy plain to the base of the 

 mountain, a rich, moist soil supports a forest of large trees of 

 Picea rubra, Pinus Strobus, Betula lutea and Fagus grandifolia, 

 and much Acer pemisylvanicum , the latter small trees, some 

 with a trunk diameter of fully four inches. After passing 

 this ascending seepage plain and a sharp boulder-strewn pitch 

 (perhaps the sea wall or strand of the glacial flood) was found 

 a deep vegetable soil, relatively smooth of surface and rapidly 

 sloping far upward to the still sharper pitches of the shallow- 

 soil cove ledges. In this broad belt of deep soil a stately for- 

 est of red spruce and yellow birch afforded a most comfortable 

 shade for a dense, unbroken carpet of Oxalis Acetosella, now 



