May i8, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
631 
no financial liabilities, the National having pro¬ 
vided for all expenses. 
We intend making a strenuous effort to obtain 
new members during the present month, so as 
to accomplish our great object, viz.: to make 
the North Shore Casting Club the best and 
largest in this country, one of which we may be 
proud. To accomplish this result, the club is 
hereby divided into two groups. The members 
whose names begin with letters “A” to “H’ in¬ 
clusive are under the leadership of T. A. Forsyth, 
3238 N. Richmond street. Those between “I” 
and “Y” inclusive are under the guidance of 
O. J. Waters, M.D., 3 W. Delaware street. 
All requests to the secretary for application 
cards will be promptly honored. 
Botany at Englewood, New Jersey. 
BY W. G. BOWDOIN. 
OME thirty botanical enthusiasts, under the 
leadership of Miss E. Addie Austin, of 
Brooklyn, visited Englewood, N. J., to study 
wild flowers. Botany can, of course, be studied 
from the millinery floral ornamentation of hats, 
or from the street display of the general grocery 
store, but far better results may be obtained 
from a field-flower gathering in the woods 
and the study of such flowers as those met with 
at the Donald McKay reservation, near the Hack¬ 
ensack River, at Englewood. The woods, as they 
GROUP OF BOTANISTS. 
are now constituted, are not the primeval forest, 
but rather cut-over woods, full of botanical 
treasures. The spring beauties that were spar¬ 
ingly found last week at Annadale, N. J., were 
encountered at Englewood in masses that grew 
particular!}’- abundant along the banks of a brook 
that ran through the rather open woods. The 
violets were out also in far greater force, in 
greater variety and more advanced flower. A 
yellow violet was among the finds made. An¬ 
other was the dogtooth violet, which is not a 
violet at all, but rather one of the lily family. 
It looks just as pretty, however, and smells just 
as sweet as any violet. The leaves of th's plant 
also offer much in the way of charm, as they 
are delightfully mottled. This flower is cross- 
fertilized by the early bees, some of which were 
already in evidence. The jack-in-the-pulpit was 
found in perfection. 
Fern fronds were abundant, just breaking 
away from the wooly covering that characterizes 
Scores made in quarter-ounce bait and accu¬ 
racy fly, May 4: 
*F. N. Feet. 97.4 99 5-15 
C. M. Ercanbrock. 97.7 
.\. M. Hall, M.D. 98.1 99 9-15 
T. A. Forsyth. 97.1 99 10-15 
O. J. Waters, M.D. 97.5 
F. E. Adams. !... 97.7 
I. H. Bellows. 96.9 99 10-15 
E. J. Galley. 97.2 98 13-15 
*N. Heston . 97.4 99 13-15 
G. W. Swatek. 96.6 
L. G. Moeng. 95.9 
E. Lambert . 97.2 98 13-15 
L Goodwin . 94.6 99 4-15 
C. D. Dorchester, M.D. 97.7 99 7-15 
C Grey . 99.0 
G. A. Hinterleitner. 98 1-15 
W. Liddell . 98 9-15 
*Guests. 
them. Among the ferns were the cinnamon, the 
grape (lace fern), sensitive and the brake. Seed¬ 
lings, and young trees in the growing, were 
everywhere. The skunk cabbage was conspicu¬ 
ous. Its odor suggested carrion, but its com¬ 
bination of colors included madder purple, green 
and yellow-green that was very striking. 
Along the banks of the brook grew horsetails. 
These are grandchildren of the calamites of the 
coal measures, that would be worth a lot of 
money if they could only be converted into the 
coal carbons by some chemical process. Some 
of the rushes, sedges and watercresses were near 
neighbors.- The rushes are characterized by 
hairy leaves and blooms that occur in exagger¬ 
ated forms in the tropics. Rushes are among 
the very early spring flowers. 
Some wild lilies of the valley was another find. 
The older botanies credited this flower with of¬ 
fering its perfume to the nightingale as a de¬ 
served tribute. It has furnished a fluid extract 
that has been used medicinally as a cardiac tonic. 
The Solomon’s seal found nearby had a grace¬ 
fully curving stem. The leader dragged a speci¬ 
men up by its roots and disclosed the round 
scars left on the root stock by the dead stalks 
of the preceding year that do resemble the im¬ 
pressions made by seals upon wax. In decoction 
it is employed as a domestic remedy to allay 
irritation of mucous surfaces. Dwarf ginsing, 
or ground nut, was found nearby. Its roots are 
in high medicinal favor among the Chinese, and 
because of its export the plant has, according 
to Bb Schuyler Mathews, become rare. An ex¬ 
ample of the hooked crowfoot, distinguished by 
its remarkably hooked seed vessels that develop 
later, was gathered. Buttercups and marsh mari¬ 
golds came next; then some cinquefoil and 
moneywort. This plant can be so easily grown 
that it is almost true that you can stick a piece 
of it into some soil, and it will grow of its own 
accord. It becomes highly decorative in rustic 
baskets. It is a trailing vine. Some common 
agrimony, or as it is sometimes called, cockle 
burr or stick weed, was ne.xt found. Some of 
the visiting botanists called it toxic, and the 
plants were in consequence passed by with no 
little caution. The books, however, do not bear 
out this view of the plant, except in so far as 
to say that it contains tannin. 
There were two notable finds on this excur¬ 
sion. The first was the globe flower, one of 
the madder famih'. It is very rare in this sec¬ 
tion, Englewood being the one locality where 
it is ordinarily met with. The flower heads of 
this plant resemble pin cushions stuck full of pins. 
The second of the notable finds was the sun¬ 
dew. This is a bog plant and means wet feet 
in gathering. Its chief interest lies in the fact 
of its being insectivorous. It is a small and un¬ 
obtrusive plant which might easily be passed by, 
even when one is looking for it. It nestles in 
certain of the mosses in moist places and has 
a bright red flower stem. It bears from two 
or three to five or si.x leaves, generally extended 
more or less horizontally. These leaves are sup¬ 
plied with gland-bearing filaments or tentacles. 
The glands are each surrounded by drops of 
viscid secretion which, glittering in the sun, gave 
rise to its somewhat poetical name. Should an 
insect alight upon the central disc of an adult 
plant, it is instantly entangled by the viscid se¬ 
cretion and enmeshed subsequently by the plant’s 
tentacles, generally meeting death in about a 
quarter of an hour, according to Darwin, who 
made researches as to the sundew. The juices 
of the insect thus captured by the sundew enter 
into the plant’s cells and become nutrition for 
it. The sundew is by no means common, but 
a number of examples of it were found on this 
trip. The juices of this plant are said to cure 
warts and corns. It was hoped .to find some 
orchids in the bog where the sundews grew, but 
RUSTIC BRIDGE. 
none were discovered. Also to be seen were 
certain of the fresh water algae, diatoms, desmids 
and other aquatic plants, that are so often reve¬ 
lations under the m croscope. Other botanical 
units encountered were blooming huckleberries, 
hellebore, poisonous for sheep and cattle; wood 
anemone, or wind flower, with its five petals; 
Dutchman’s breeches, early meadow parsnip, 
spice bush, trillium or wake robin (found by 
Miss Brainerd), wood betony (found by Miss 
Jacobs) and dandelions in full bloom. When 
the party started reluctantly homeward, the 
spring beauties in the open woods were fast 
closing their delicate petals for the repose of 
the night that comes alike to the botanical and 
animal worlds. On the way to the cars a native 
goat was observed and two Manx dogs engaged 
in the animal play that Karl Groos has written 
so ' entertainingly about. Every vasculum was 
filled to overflowing, and many of the party car¬ 
ried paper bags filled with specimens. 
