Maine stream near the eastern boundary of the White Mountain National Forest 



into the wilderness can be found 

 along the way, including Caribou 

 Trail, which climbs to the flat granite 

 top of Caribou Mountain. 



The granite summit and high 

 ledges of Caribou Mountain have lit- 

 tle soil, as a result of a past fire. From a 

 distance they appear bare of vegeta- 

 tion. In fact, despite the dry condi- 

 tions created by exposure and wind, 

 certain low-growing plants survive on 

 the gravel-strewn and rocky surfaces. 

 Among them is White Mountain sil- 

 verling, an herb in the pink, or carna- 

 tion, family, which grows in small 

 tufts. I consider it a rare variety of 

 Paronychia argyrocoma. The plant has 

 many narrow, almost needlelike leaves, 

 whose edges are curled under. Its tiny 

 flowers lack petals, but they grow in 

 clusters surrounded by silvery 

 bracts — hence the name "silverling." 

 Mountain sandwort, another member 

 of the pink family, often grows along 

 with the silverling, hugging the bare 



granite in dense, tangled mats. Each 

 plant has scores of threadlike stems 

 that bear soft, limp, extremely narrow 

 leaves. I regard it as a distinguishable, 

 rare variety of Minuartia groenlandica. 



Maine State Route 5 lies east of 

 the wilderness area and away 

 from the mountains, but it does give 

 access to several scenic brooks and 

 ponds in the national forest.You can 

 turn onto Forest Road 7 to drive a 

 four-mile-long, self-guided tour, the 

 Patte Brook Auto Tour. After parallel- 

 ing the brook for more than a mile, 

 the road reaches a turnoff leading to a 

 granite dam built nearly 200 years ago 

 to regulate water-power for a down- 

 stream saw mill. The U.S. Forest Ser- 

 vice has repaired the long-neglected 

 dam to create forty-five acres of 

 marshland and ponds. Known as the 

 Patte Brook Waterfowl Impound- 

 ment, the acreage is managed as a 

 wetland for wildlife by the U.S. Forest 



Service. Some areas along the brook 

 have also been cleared of trees, mostly 

 speckled alders. The clearings were 

 intended to benefit ruffed grouse, 

 which feed on insects in the sunlit 

 grasses, but they also serve as spring 

 courting grounds for woodcock, and 

 they attract deer and black bears. 

 Apple trees left over from the time the 

 land was farmed grow here and there. 



Beyond the turn-off for the dam, 

 the tour route veers left off Forest 

 Road 7 and onto Forest Road 18. On 

 the west side of the road, just before it 

 crosses New England Brook, is a small, 

 glacial bog.The name "glacial" reflects 

 its origins more than 10,000 years ago, 

 when a block of glacial ice melted in a 

 shallow depression. In the intervening 

 millennia, the resulting pond filled in 

 with deep beds of sphagnum. Because 

 there is no natural outlet, the water has 

 become acidic and thus attractive to 

 acid-loving plants, particularly mem- 

 bers of the heath family. 



The road ends at Crocker Pond, a 

 lovely pond stocked with brook trout. 



Robert H. Mohlenbrock is a distin- 

 guished professor emeritus of plant biology at 

 Southern Illinois University Carbondale. 



VISITOR INFORMATION 



White Mountain National Forest 

 719 Main Street 

 Laconia, NH 03246 

 603-528-8721 



(Patte Brook Auto Tour: 603-466-2713). 

 www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/white_mountain/ 

 and www.wilderness.net 



tumn bloomers are blue 

 heart-leaved aster, elliptic 

 shinleaf, roadside agrimony, 

 spotted coralroot (a plant de- 

 void of chlorophyll that lives 

 off organic matter in the soil), 

 and wrinkle-leaved golden- 

 rod. New York fern is abun- 

 dant on the forest floor. 



Exposed granite summit and 

 ledge Dwarf birch and dwarf 



white birch are often present, 

 along with wildflowers. In addi- 

 tion to the rare White Mountain 

 silverling and mountain sand- 

 wort, the wildflowers include 

 cowwheat, Drummond's rock 

 cress, mountain white potentil- 

 la, pale corydalis, pinweed, and 

 purple crowberry. Several 

 members of the heath family al- 

 so grow here and there, among 

 them bog bilberry, mountain 



cranberry (also called lin- 

 gonberry), and sheep laurel. 



Bog and swamp Black ash, 

 black spruce, and larch (tama- 

 rack) are the principal trees; 

 lower-growing trees and 

 shrubs include American 

 alder-buckthorn, Labrador 

 tea, leatherleaf, mead- 

 owsweet, mountain service- 

 berry, red osier-dogwood, 



rhodora, silky willow, small 

 cranberry, sweet gale, winter- 

 berry, and withe rod. Among 

 the numerous wildflowers are 

 bristly crowfoot, narrow- 

 leaved gentian, pink Saint- 

 John's-wort, purple swamp 

 aster, tall white bog orchid, 

 three-leaved false Solomon's 

 seal, water avens, white 

 turtlehead, and three kinds of 

 willow herbs. 



September 2006 NATURAL HISTORY 



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