Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1896-08-22
PLANT LIFE AT NIAGARA.
A visw Of hinEs Not Seen by Most Wis
itors at the Great Cataract.

A visw Of hinxs Not Seen BY Most Wis
itors at the Great Cataract.
Nature never fails 10 give us or
overtones when she plays her great
symphonies any more than do the
great composers We cannot fail to
catch the softening and nellowing
thus lent to tho musical strain, for
hearing is involuntary, but We
must SO often be taught to see what
is right before us and our teachers
IRE so few that we not infrequently
miss all but the most dazzling part
of the outdoor picture. The devotee
of field science is never more aware
of this than OH visiting Niagara
falls. Standing fortnight ago on
Prospect point, perhaps the most
striking scenic SPOT in the world,
leaned over the edge of the sheer
and partly overhanging wall and
looked down, not at tho great sheet
of water, but at the rocks that con.
time the gorge northward.
There is often scarcely handful
of soil to tho square foot, and some.
times apra, o,.;ly none at all on the
face of tho lreat rrecirice, yet it is
clothed With Wild plants almost
from top to bottom. So hidden are
they by tho perpendicular wall and
the artificial COPING above it that
many of them arc hard to mako out,
but new discoveries are made at ev-
cry change of position. The colum-
bine (AQuilegia canadensis) loves
the spot SO well that its bright red
blossoms appear sometimes after
they have disappeared from gardens.
Tho plant is tho most venturesome
and hardy CT any there and appears
in rock cl avica where nothing else
! but tho bara wall is seen. 1t is diff
cult to understand how it su0sists
or even clings to the wall, but it is
content and holds out 10 hands for
sustenanoe except 10 the humid mir.
One OF two wild roses are there,
and the wild gooseberry sends up
sturdy stems near the top of the
wall. A spea, probably tomentosa,
is at home, and goldenrods (Rhus
toxieodendrum) and probably Rhus
rad leans, as it is everywhere about
tho falls and Ampelopsis qwinque-
folia. Crecpers are rampant, hardly
less 40 than i'll the woods Oh Goat is-
land, where the wild grape attains
great size and runs freely over the
tops of quito tall trees The wild
grape on thu edge of the gorge was
Just setting its crop and showed a
luxuriancs OF lunches that would
charm IA vineyardist. Bittersweet
and Solanum duloamara are also
there. These vines TO not venture
far down tho wall, as they need soil,
but they are in tho spirit of the
place and arc seen rising from its
base and sometimes making their
way far up the moist surface, while
the aquilegia and some smaller
greenery that it is hard to make out
in the distance crop out OF every
seam and ridge and terrace from
base to summit.
It is this acceptance of the wild
spirit of Niagara that makes its flora
so acceptable. The soil is naturally
thin and sterile, so that the effort to
turn the river bank on the mainland
into a cultivated park is so far in
differently successful, and the am.
bilious evergreens that were plant.
ed on Bath island are all gone. But
this makes no difference with the
wild plants. They flourish every
where and are as indifferent to the
soil as any but actual air plants can
be.
The widest of our native plants
do not yield naturally to oultiva.
ton, because they demand atmos-
pheric conditions that cannot be
transplanted with them. The result
is that they linger awhile out of
their native element and tn en- disap-
pear. Let Niagara pretty generally
alone and it will never want for
fora that is appropriate to it. There
is very doubtful need of the forest
tree nursery that is made to disfig-
ure part of Goat island or the
thicket of snowberry (Symphoricar-
pus raoemosus) that begins to shut
in the drive from Bath island.-Gar.
den and Forest.