six spikes of the Small Purple-Fringed Orchis in bud. I was too early for
Pogonias and Limodorums, which are fast disappearing from this swamp.
The colony of Fragrant Yellow Moccasin-Flowers, in the Glen of Comus,
was photographed one morning while the sunshine struggled in through the
leaves, lighting up the flowers in this labyrinth of tropical foliage.
They were fragrant in the highest degree—a true form of _Cypripedium
parviflorum_, with a slight variegated effect of carmine coloring on the
tips of the slippers. This is the first instance of such spots of crimson
on the exterior observed by me. Near this group stands also a larger
colony of _Cypripedium hirsutum_ seedling plants. Several had bloomed
this season. One slipper had been destroyed by what appeared to be a
snail. Nothing of the flower remained but the column, with the adhering
anthers and stigmatic lobes. The sepals and petals, including the
labellum, were eaten away. The snail was still clinging to the column,
and must have found some delicate food in the juices of such golden
petals to cause him to tear the flower apart. He may, however, have
fertilized the species in the act; yet the destruction of its parts would
have weakened the possible chances of the seed-capsule maturing properly.
[Illustration: =A Colony of the Small Yellow Fragrant Moccasin-Flower=
(_Cypripedium parviflorum_) =in the Glen of Comus, District Fourteen,
Pownal, Vermont.=
“_There’s a haunt I would lead you to,_
_Home of the gossamer and the dew._
_Where, from out of the murky loam,_
_Springs the sacred flower of the gnome._”
CLINTON SCOLLARD.]
In the bend of Ball Brook, amid the ferns, the Tall Northern Green Orchis
(_Habenaria hyperborea_) blooms, its seeds having floated down here from
the seed-capsules ripening on plants bordering the stream above.
Wild Ginger-Root (_Asarum Canadense_) grows abundantly along the
sphagnous edges of the Swamp of Oracles. This plant produces bell-shaped
blossoms, which invariably turn downward, hiding in the soft soil beneath
the leaves. Its creeping roots are of a spicy, ginger-like flavor. The
leaves—kidney-shaped—appear as small burdocks at a distance. The generic
name is very obscure, although the plant was known to the early Greeks,
and later known in Latin as _Asarum_, _Nardus rustica_, and _Perpensa_.
Macer called it _Vulgago_, while it was known in England and Germany in
1578 as _Asarabacca_, _Folefoot_, and _Hazlewort_. It was used by the
ancients as an antidote for venomous serpent bites, sciatica, difficult
respiration, and various other diseases.
On June 15th I made my farewell journey to Etchowog. Turning into the
thicket, east of the Barber Mill, I followed a path as far as possible,
and then waded through sphagnum into a meadow-like clearing of three
acres or more, concealed in the deepest of solitude. It was closed in
on all sides by low alders, willows, and beautiful green spires of
tamarack-trees. The sphagnum was many feet deep, spangled with flowers;
and rising above the swamp grasses were iris blades and buckbean leaves.
It was a little world whose limitations were the infinite blues above,
the depths of moss below, and the circling green-fringed forest trees.
The sunshine knew the field, and poured in upon it. I was obliged to wade
slowly over the quaking sphagnum, assisted by pine-slabs, strewn about as
stepping blocks.
The oblong green leaves of the rare Buckbeans (_Menyanthes
trifoliata_)—found also in the Cranberry Bogs, north of Pownal Pond—were
here thickly entangled over the greater area of the meadow. A few spikes
still were in blossom, although the greater portion were adorned with
the bullet-like glossy, smooth seed-pods. Later in the season they
would slowly ripen, and throw thousands of seeds broadcast over the
sphagnous field. It is evident that this plant—so infrequent in its
general distribution—is most productive of its own seeds in its chosen
haunts. This species is a sister genus of the Blue-Fringed Gentians,
abundant along the edges of these bogs during October. Gentians derived
their generic name from King Gentius of Illyria, who first used them in
medicine.
The Floating-Heart (_Limnanthemum lacunosum_), closely allied to the
Buckbeans, grows also in our marshy pools, the leaves being heart-shaped,
instead of oblong as those of _Menyanthes_.
In the middle of this swamp an island arose, over which grew willow
bushes and tamarack spires, interspersed by grape-vines. I crawled
through the bushes without finding a flower worthy of description.
Surrounding the edges of this island, tall spikes of the Fragrant
Northern Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_) rose above the water-soaked
sphagnum. I was able to reach a few of them, then sought the _terra
firma_ of the tangled swamp beyond. I ran great risk, since I was forced
to wade the soaking bogs where the cat-tail flags were dense. I managed
to jump from hummock to hummock, not waiting for the grass to grow
beneath my feet. Beyond I struggled through the low tangled trees covered
with the Wild Frost Grape-Vines or Possum-Grape (_Vitis cordifolia_),
amid tamaracks, swamp-maples, poison-sumach and ivy-vines. I observed
many enormous colonies of Pitcher Plants, still in bloom in the shades.
Finally I reached the muddy bank of Ball Brook, ragged, dirty, and tired.
I found the stream impassable because of the mud. Even old Major had
sense enough not to go too near the stream. I was forced to make my way,
as well as possible, back to the mill, among piles of old tinware that
had been accumulating since the early Revolutionary days of 1777.
Once out of this place, it was a pleasure to enter the open Pitcher Plant
Meadow, where I searched for Pogonias and Limodorums without success. I
circled about the swamp and turned away from it at the north, climbing
over the hill above the Washon Bridge, toward Cranberry Swamp. Blue jays
were screaming loudly, and catbirds were mewing in the bushes near the
pools. I found the path near the pond, which led through luxuriant ferns
to the shades of pines beyond. Here the ground was carpeted with fragrant
needles and cones. Bull-frogs croaked hoarsely in the swamp beneath the
lily-pads, and over the hillside crept yards of the evergreens known as
Ground-Pine (_Lycopodium obscurum_) and Club-Moss (_Lycopodium Selago_),
known to the Greeks as Wolf’s-Claw. This moss takes hold of the earth
with its small roots, like the claws of a wolf.
This corner of Etchowog was the home of the mosquito, and I was obliged
to use a bough of sweet-fern to keep the pests from devouring me.
“Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing,
Does murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about,
...
Thou’rt welcome to the town—but why come here?”[46]
XV
White Oaks and Gregor Rocks
I can recall to mind the stillest summer hours, in which the
grasshopper sings over the mulleins, and there is a valor in
that time the bare memory of which is armor that can laugh
at any blow of fortune.—THOREAU, _Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers_.
I had been on the trail for white Moccasin-Flowers for years; and on June
16th a lad of White Oaks Valley promised to guide me to the Forks of
Broad Brook, and show me a colony of absolutely White Lady’s Slippers.
We arrived at the junction of the Field Brook—where it crosses the White
Oaks Road near Richmond’s Farm—and turned our horse’s head through the
fields eastward along the rude loggers’ path travelled in winter. We
were obliged to cross fields of oats and potato vines in order to arrive
on the summit of these rounded hills. Here, amid the white birches and
sweet-fern bushes, we fastened our horse. Among these ferns and briars I
discovered five enormous orange-yellow mushrooms, which, apparently, were
of recent growth. They were gorgeous to behold, and smelled like new-made
bread, yet they were extremely poisonous. They were, upon examination,
found to spring from a socket, above which a ring encircled the stalk.
This is characteristic of genus _Amanita_ of this form of fungus. This
poisonous species with some susceptible people produces serious results
if only handled, or if its fragrance is inhaled. I collected three
specimens, however, and put them in my vasculum.
We now descended the slopes eastward leading to the Wilsey Lot, where
we found a road leading up through Broad Brook Valley to the Forks. The
path was bordered with tall, luxuriant brakes at least four feet high.
They were covered with dew, and brushing against them, we became wet
through. My guide was an alert observer, and darting off here and there
into the ravine, he brought forth gay blossoms of the Showy Queen of the
Moccasin-Flowers. As we proceeded, we came to a bend of the brook and
followed along high ledges of rock, where we crossed to the right over
the boulder-filled stream. A quarter of a mile more brought us to another
bend in the brook, and here we re-crossed, and at the left hand abruptly
climbed the hillside in the sphagnous bed of a rivulet. Here, my guide
said, were the Pure White Moccasin-Flowers. They proved to be pale pink
blossoms of the Showy Reginæ, however, and not, as I had hoped, the rarer
_Cypripedium candidum_, or even the albinos of _Cypripedium reginæ_.
It is said that in a swamp near the Forks both of the Yellow
Moccasin-Flowers bloom. American Mountain Laurel, the beautiful
Calico-bush, was in full bloom hereabout, so the day was not without some
new treasure found.
[Illustration: =The Mountain Laurel.= (_Kalmia latifolia._)
“_And all the rugged mountainside_
_Thro’ billowy curves is seen;_
_The roadsides meet in ample shade,_
_With showers of light and golden glooms,_
_And bubbling up the rocky ways_
_The clustered laurel blooms._”
ELAINE GOODALE.]
The wildness of Broad Brook Valley is delightful. The stream rises in
luxuriant swamps on the eastern summit of the Dome, between Stamford and
Haystack Mountains. The Forks along the stream are formed by this one
and others flowing down from Mount Hazen, which lies to the southeast of
the Dome. The valley is comparatively wide, and the stream, as its name
implies, is broad. The chasm bears scars of days when the heights to the
northeast were capped with glaciers, towering thousands of feet above the
present mutton-backed summits, which were formed into their dome-like
shapes by the erosions of this ice sheet. The channel of the stream is
full of tumbling boulders, and during April, when the snows are melting,
a wilder brook is unknown in the Hoosac Valley. Three seasons it has
become so rough and swollen that it has carried bridges and all else in
its course before it, threatening the houses and little chapel, as it
rushed downward to the Hoosac.
Bears inhabit these dark ravines, and wander close to the habitation of
man in the Hollow. Not far from where we collected our flowers, a bear
had been killed last season by two lads fishing in the stream. As I
left the glen, and drove out over the moss-grown hills, and through the
hollows, I found the ground red with wild strawberries. Needless to say,
I paused until I had my fill of this luscious fruit, and I carried a
birch-bark cornucopia of it away with me.
On June 18th I visited my great colony of Showy Reginæ in Rattlesnake
Swamp. As they were not yet unfolded in their perfection of magenta
coloring, I put up a warning on a tree near them not to rob the colony
until photographed,—fearing some fisherman would behold and gather the
blossoms. However, they were photographed successfully on the 20th.
The stumps and trees in this corner of the swamp are covered with dead
boughs, laden with lichens and reindeer moss. A kind of moss known as
_Usnea_ hangs from the boughs of the trees above. The whole region is
humid and luxuriant, and could almost deceive one into believing that
he was in the jungles of the Southlands, instead of among the glooms
of the Green Mountains. The beautiful Butterfly-fungus (_Polypores_)
is especially interesting throughout this swamp, growing on dead trees
and logs. Another pretty species, found on stumps and the earth, has
scarlet-tinted cups, nestling in early spring amid the mosses. The trees
and stones display both their gray and foliaceous lichens everywhere
hereabout; and in the fields, the smoking puff-balls burst beneath the
footsteps. Foxes Fire-Eyes is common in this region. It is decaying wood,
green in color, said to be full of threads of phosphorescent fungi.
During the night this wood gives out a soft, luminous light, which if it
happens to come from a large stump, often frightens both travellers and
horses along our woodland roads.
In the Swamp of Rattlesnake Brook may be found the Pitch or Torch-Pine
(_Pinus rigida_), shad-bushes, white and black birches, chestnuts,
high huckleberries, and small bushes of the Ague Tree (_Sassafras_),
which seem rare here, but are abundant in southern New York. The
odd spires of the double or black spruce are also found among the
denizens of this region. From May until late November the swamp brings
forth, in their season, arbutus, mountain snowberry vines, St. John’s
wort, low huckleberry, the evergreen leaves of _Gaultheria_, prince’s
pine, creeping evergreens, numerous rushes and sedges. Here, too, the
goldthread entangles the roots of mosses and trilliums, while the
Sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_), creeps along the mossy sides of the
wood road, and in the deeper sphagnum about the stream. The rare Large
Whorled Pogonia (_Pogonia verticillata_), of the Orchid Family, has been
collected in this swamp for three seasons. This orchid is rare in New
England, save in Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was first found in
Vermont near High Bridge and Colchester by Messrs. Robbins and Oakes, the
pioneer botanists, who passed through the State in 1829. The delicate
emerald green leaves of Clintonia, marsh marigolds, Solomon’s seal,
Shin-Leaf (_Pyrola rotundifolia_), liverwort, wild briar-roses, lambkill,
blue lobelias, Labrador tea, yellow loosestrife, blue-fringed gentians,
innumerable ferns, the spikes of the Tall-Green Orchis, plants of the
Round-Leaved Orchis, the Pink Moccasin-Flower, and rarely the beautiful
orchid, _Arethusa bulbosa_—all of these conspire to make the region a
wilderness of beauty.
On an excursion to Thompson’s Brook, June 19th, near Meyers’s Sugar-Bush,
I collected ferns and iris. As I descended to the hemlocks, near the
waterfalls, I stumbled upon the late plants of the Showy Orchis (_Orchis
spectabilis_), in bloom—which were fully two weeks past the regular
flowering date. They had faded in the hills of Mosholu on May 19th.
I had heard of Wash-Tub Brook for years, and on July 5th started off to
explore the valley and the cliffs of Gregor Rocks above North Pownal.
A lime-rock ridge runs from the base of Mount Anthony southeasterly to
the Glebe in Witch Hollow region. The soil of the latter is principally
black slate, with outcropping boulders of marble and lime-rock. In 1899,
Mr. W. W. Eggleston of Rutland had visited this valley, and reported the
rare Rue-Wall Spleenwort and the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brakes growing
abundantly on Gregor Rocks. I followed his path of cliff-climbing, as
nearly as possible. Now that the orchid season was practically ended, I
was giving my attention to hunting ferns, and I knew I should find them
among the lime-rock cliffs. I had recently collected the Walking Fern in
its native haunts. I proceeded up the valley of Wash-Tub Brook, passing
the limestone mills northward, toward Mount Anthony and Peckham’s Hollow.
Another stream, known as Hemlock Brook, flows down from the eastern
slopes of Perkins’ Hill, and joins the Wash-Tub stream near the lime
crushers. All the streams in this western corner of Pownal flow to the
Hoosac River, while the streams from the northern summits of the Dome and
Mount Œta flow northward to the Walloomsac.
[Illustration: =The Gregor Rocks, Hoosac Valley, from Pownal Centre,
Vermont.=]
For the greater part of the valley, Wash-Tub Brook flows through open
pasture lands. The bed is broad and shallow, strewn with numerous small
lime-rock boulders drifted down from the hills with the floods of spring.
The larger boulders wear scars and dimpled erosions of the glacial
period. I took time to explore the ledges above, where the depressions
reveal the terraces of an ancient lake. The prevailing evergreen trees
here appear to be hemlock and cedar—the American _Arbor Vitæ_—whose roots
cling to the cliffs, their green spires lending a touch of coloring to
the bare-faced walls.
I saw from the banks here the distant pot-hole formations in the brook,
from which the stream had taken its name. As I approached these marble
basins, I found three in succession—one above the other—following the
course of the stream—a narrow passage eroded through crystalline marble
and limestone. The first or lowermost one was like a small lakelet
overflowing its brim. The second one was a typical pot-hole, revolving
its stones in its whirling waters. The bowl was about six feet deep,
of a circular—or rather elliptical form, about twenty-six feet in
circumference. The stream entered through the middle of the northern rim,
and had eroded a spout-like gutter, causing the water to flow in a rapid,
seething manner as if poured into the basin below. Here the greenish
water boiled and whirled, finally with an added force leaping forth
through a deep spout over the lower rim of the pot, carrying with it
small stones and marble dust—the lower rim thus being worn away. As the
bowl becomes deeper, layers of rock will be cracked and broken, until
finally the pot-hole formation will be destroyed. The upper or third
basin is located in the harder portion of the lime and marble bed-rock,
portions of the marble being highly polished. The marble brook-bed
glittered in the noonday sunshine. Pot-holes are formed originally
by a boulder, which—carried in the currents of a stream—lodges in a
depression of the bed-rock. It bores gradually into its resting place,
until, in the course of ages, it has worn the walls of its basin into a
deep hollow, at the same time wearing itself away, at last being carried
off as a pebble. It may be that these holes are sometimes formed in a
slightly different way. Dimples and fissures often occur in rocks, and if
the water and pebbles circle about these cracks they probably eat down
through the soft layers of rock, and thus loosen a revolving stone from
the bed-rock itself. It would then fit the pot-hole closely for ages,
revolving as the currents become forceful in freshets. The pot-holes
along the granite ridges in Bronx Park, New York City, as well as on the
Canaan Hills—nearly one thousand feet above the Merrimac and Connecticut
river-beds,—reveal the erstwhile revolving stones now motionless in their
basins.
[Illustration: =The Pot-Hole of Wash-Tub Brook, Pownal, Vermont, Showing
the Stream Whirling through its Basin.=
“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the
gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal
allowance of time.”—THOREAU.]
After remaining in the region of the Wash-Tubs an hour or more, I
followed down the lateral moraine or wooded ridge along the stream, which
became rocky in the heart of the hemlocks. Upon a broad table-like rock,
I found a large mat of Walking Ferns. It appeared about four feet square,
and contained the most luxuriant plants I have ever seen or expect
to see. I placed several in my vasculum, and descended to the stream,
hastening on toward the village. Here I met an old gray-haired man—the
inn-keeper for the mill laborers. He recognized my botanizing outfit,
and remarked that Mr. Eggleston had passed through the town in 1899. He
directed me to the Gregor Rocks, above the village, and thus I found the
path winding around the northern brow of these lime-rock cliffs.
Crossing the Pownal Centre road, I entered the pasture east of the
village church, and wound up the cliffs above the limekiln quarry. Here,
striking in among the cedar trees and ragged bluffs, I pulled myself up
under the trees and rocks. Resting for a moment, I beheld a fern which
proved to be the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake (_Pellæa atropurpurea_). Much
elated by my discovery, I fell to wondering what the little Wall-Rue
Spleenwort (_Asplenium Ruta-muraria_) could look like. I had studied the
plates of these rare ferns, but had not known them face to face. I soon
came to an enormous lime-rock boulder on the summit of Gregor Rocks, and
here I found the rare ferns for which I searched. From the crevices both
the tender green tufts of the Wall-Rue Spleenwort and the wiry purple
stems of the Cliff-Brake grew luxuriantly, draping the fissured sides of
the boulder. Climbing to the top of the boulder, I saw beyond my reach
a tuft of Walking Fern. This proved to me that this plant throve on the
dryest of lime-rocks in the full glare of the sun, as well as in damp
sheltered places. None of these species look like the ferns that are
ordinarily known, and unless one turns the leaves over and observes the
_sori_ or fruit dots, he would never guess to what family they belonged,
so different are they in appearance from their brothers of the boglands
and hillside pastures.
The rocks about were covered with tufts of the delicate Wall-Rue, and
great tangles of the Cliff-Brake, growing from twelve to fifteen inches
tall. The last year’s growth was still brown and rusty amid the fresh
green fronds of this season. Hardy indeed were these ferns, growing in
such a dry, exposed place.
Later in the month I made another trip to secure some ferns for
photographing. It was Sunday, and the church bells were ringing at
North Corners as I drove into the valley, and hitched my horse opposite
the village inn. As I went my way toward the haunts of the ferns, I
soon discovered that I was not making my ascent to the cliffs alone. A
gray-haired woman, with basket on her arm, overtook me. She seemed to be
gathering the bluebells along the ledges. We began to converse, and when
we came to some ripe strawberries, we ate in a social way the fruits we
found by the path. She told me she was gathering bluebells to decorate
the chancel of the church, as it was Children’s Day.
On the brow of Gregor Rocks I asked my companion if the legend were true,
of which Hawthorne writes, in 1838, during his stay in the valley at
North Adams: “A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice
in Pownal, hundreds of feet high, and, if the tale be true, being buoyed
up by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.”[47] She told me the name
of the girl who had made the leap. She was a half-witted creature who,
descending the cliffs at twilight with a package of wool rolls, thought
to save time by throwing her burden ahead of her and leaping from the
rocks. Her homespun garments caught and held her in the cedars below,
until the villagers heard her screams and rescued her. The rocks are
called “Weeping Rocks”—for what reason it is not quite clear, unless
through some exaggeration of this story.
I collected some perfect ferns, and told my companion their names. She
glowed with interest, and told me she had never been to these cliffs
since she was a child, until now. She said if she had her life to live
again, she would have devoted more time to exploring these rugged hills
and vales. Soon our baskets were filled, and with a warm handclasp we
parted.
I proceeded up Wash-Tub Brook, and secured some fresh plants of the
Walking Fern in Hemlock Glen; then I returned to my horse. I was laden
with rare treasures from the roadsides before I reached Mount Œta, late
in the afternoon.
Many of the present names of ferns, lichens, and mosses originated with
the ancients. Dioscorides knew and designated two kinds of fern. They
were thought to put forth no seed in those days, since they produced no
flowers—except as Dodoens in 1578 wrote: “We shall take for seede the
blacke spots growing on the backside of the leaves, the which some do
gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the truth, it is nothing
else but trumperie and superstition.”[48]
The Osmunda, Polypody, Oak-Fern, Hart’s-Tongue, Spleenwort, Asplenium,
Venus-Hair and Maiden-Hair, as well as the delicate _Ruta-Muraria_—the
Wall-Rue found on Gregor Rocks—were described clearly by the earliest
herbalists. These records are full of errors and confusion, since the
natural affinity of these species was not then known.
The Lichens were known also as “Stone-Liverworts (_Hepatica_), found
with wrinkled, crimpled leaves on the ground or moist sweating rocks,
where the sun shines seldom,” according to Dodoens. Among the list of
mosses described, I discover that our Round-Leaved Sundew, the little
carnivorous plant, was anciently classed as a species of moss, in close
relation with the Ground and Club mosses known as _Lycopodium_. But the
Sundew, unlike the mosses, produces a stalk with white flowers. The plant
was considered strange, because the stronger shone the sun upon the
round, reddish leaves, the more moist with drops of dew became the plant;
for this reason it was called in Latin, _Ros Solis_, which became in
English _Sundew_, in 1578.