— 42 — 



1 



a picture, evoked by this statement, of our friend and author climbing chamois- . | 



like about precipice and beetling crag in pursuit of his prey, awakened undue | 



timidity, we know not; but one thing is certain: no Luminous Moss came to I 



light, although we looked with all our eyes. However, many other mosses chacac- i 



teristic of high mountains repaid our efforts until, on the morning of the third day, i 



a severe northeasterly storm sent us back by foot to Stone, drenched to the skin. I 



In the following summer a fortnight's sojourn at Franconia, N. H., gave op- j 



portunity to study the rich moss flora on that side of the White Mountains. ;■ 



Many delightful excursions were made in the vicinity of the Notch, when the ; 



Knight's Plume, Ptilium crista-castrensis, is at its best, and where deep carpets \ 



of Hylocomium proliferum vie in beauty with soft banks of Hypnum Schreberi ^ 



with individual plants a foot long! The ascent of Mount Cannon alone is worth ,i 



the whole trip to an enthusiastic bryologist, but it was not on Mount Cannoa ^ 



that we found Schistostega. i 



In the Lesquereux and James Manual we read that, at the time of its publi- ' 

 cation, the species had been reported by C. H. Peck at Sand Lake, N. Y., and by * | 



Foster and James from near the Profile House and Dixville Notch, in the White ] 



Mountains, but we were not thinking of Lesquereux and James on the August ' 



morning when we began the ascent of Mount Lafayette. The trail starts at the ; 



Profile House and soon leads steeply up the mountain through the deep woods. ' 



Beside it are to be seen the almost ubiquitous Pohlia nutans, our old friend Di- J 



cranella heieromalla, Stereodon reptilis, and Drepanocladus uncinaius, with species ^ 



of Dicranum, all in abundance. Then, as we wound higher in our climb, appeared ;j 



frequent outcroppings of rocky ledges and bowlders, huge and moss-covered, | 



standing like venerable sentinels of the mountain side. The characteristic flora i 



of our Northern woods surrounded us with a wealth of bunchberry, Clintonia, ] 



twisted stalk, wood sorrel, species of Lycopodium, and many a graceful fern. \ 



A little before we came to Eagle Cliff, where the wind howls past in bad \ 



weather and where so many interesting lichens and mosses are spread temptingly ] 

 within reach, the trail led past a series of rocks beneath whose moist overhanging 

 shelves the recesses were scarcely penetrated by the dim Ught of the forest. As 

 was our wont, we peered within these fissures and miniature caverns. A cry 



escaped our lips! Here, at last, was the object of our search, here was theLum- . ! 



inous Moss, for, as our eyes explored the partial obscurity, a faint shimmering 1 



seemed to grow and grow until it became the glow of "goblin gold " — a soft yellow- ^ 



green light that shone now steady, now wavering, ever exquisite, beneath our ^ 



riveted and delighted gaze. To the touch mere earth, and in broad daylight | 

 mere earth, until through our handlens we distinguished the tiny Osmunda-like 



lea^'es of the sterile and the fruiting capsules of the many fruitmg plants — but, ; 



what a charm to the eye as we lingered to admire that gleam of the radiant pro- \ 



tonema in its dark treasure-house beneath the rocks! ] 



Late in the day as we fared on past the timberline to the rugged summit, the j 



weather changed and great torn rags of cloud were hurried by us and the wind 1 



blew bleak: but what mattered to us the gathering storm? We bore in our minds ' 



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