130 
BOTANY. 
haps closer than specifically related, C. pallescens L., and C. scabrata 
Schw., and Poa alsodes Gray. 
Of twenty-seven species of Ferns (including Ophioglossaceee ) which 
were noted (a number of others have been reported from different 
localities in the Catskills) ten do not Occur about Riverdale, and 
one, Aspidium aculeatum Braunii Koch, discovered in Greene 
County on June 14, 1880, in “ Deep Hollow,” — a steep defile where 
the winter’s ice was yet lingering in the recesses of the rocks, — al- 
though before found in the Catskills, has been reported farther south 
only from a single locality in the mountains of Pennsylvania. 
Some plants find their extreme southern limit, so far as known, in 
these mountains, while others which assist in bearing out the northern 
aspect of its Flora are known to extend along the higher peaks of the 
AlleoFanies into the Southern States. 
o 
In passing from the valleys into the mountains it was interesting 
to observe of plants of general distribution how much less advanced 
was their seasonal condition as the elevation increased. The ex- 
tremes of this contrast, as shown by the vegetation at the summit of 
Slide Mountain and that of the valleys below, was most striking. 
Some species which in the valleys had ceased flowering and were 
bearing green fruit were still in full bloom at the mountain tops, 
while others in like condition in the valleys and on lower slopes, on 
the mountains had not advanced beyond their earliest buds. In the 
case of generally diffused species this retrogressive gradation in 
seasonal condition with increasing altitude was, of course, complete. 
Professor Chas. H. Peck has somewhere recorded* the fact that 
many swamp-loving plants grow upon the higher mountains of the 
Adirondacks, the necessary condition of moisture being supplied by 
the frequent presence of clouds and the increased precipitation on the 
elevated summits. The same fact was observable in the Catskills, 
* Since this was written I have received from Prof. Peck a paper entitled, “ Plants of the sum- 
mit of Mount Marcy,” from the seventh report of the Adirondack survey by Verplanck Colvin, in 
which the facts here referred to are repeated, pp. 405-406. 
