General Notes on Fauna and Flora
1887       
June 24 - 26
Winchendon, Worcester Co., Mass.
  The town of Winchendon is some 16 miles (south) from
Mt. Monadnock, 19 from Fitchbury, and 16 from Princeton.
It is surrounded by a broken, hilly country, sandy rather
than rocky, very wild and largely wooded the forms
being comparatively few and far between. The hills and
in fact all the really dry ground are timbered with red
and white pines and various hardwoods, the swamps are
almost invariably densely wooded with black spruces,
balsams and larches with a few white spruces. The
spruces and balsams also grow freely in the pastures,
along the roadsides, and whereon there is young
second growth. There are a few spruces and many hemlocks
sprinkled through the old-growth upland woods.
The woods are everywhere green fresh and beautiful
the ground being carpeted with ferns and in the
swamps with sphagnum. On the hillsides in hardwood
timber the undergrowth is often largely of American
yew and Viburnum lantanoides. Acer pennsylvanicum
and A. Spicatum are abundant especially in
damp environs and along streams. The only oak I
saw was O. rubrum. The black ash is abundant in
swamps. The chestnut is not common. The beech, red oak,
red and sugar maples; black, paper, yellow and white
birches are the commonest hardwood trees. The general
aspect of the woods is similar to that of the woods
about Bethel, Maine. I missed only one tree common
there viz. the arbor vitae. Clintonia and Tilliums
abound; the beautiful little Linnara was also common
and in full flower.
  Some of the swamps were wooded exclusively with 
spruces, balsams and larches usually small threes growing