The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-08-06
NlAGARA'S WILD PLANTS.
The Sterile Soil Yields Many Beautifui
Flowers,

Flowers.
Nature never fails to give us her over
tones when she plays her great SYM
phonies, any more than do the great
composers. We cannot fail to catch
the softening and mellowing thus lent
to the musical strain, for hearing is in
voluntary, but we must so often be
taught to see what is right before us,
and our teachers are so few, that we not
infrequently miss all but the most
dazzling part of the outdoor picture.
The deyotee of field science is never
more aware of THIS than on visiting
Niagara Falls. Standing a fortnight
ago on Prospect Point, perhaps the
most striking scenic spot in the world.
/ leaned over the edge of the sheer and
partly oyerhanging wall and looked
down, not at the great sheet of water.
but at the rocks that continue the gorge
northward.
There is often scarcely a handful of
soil to the square foot, and sometimes
apparently none at all on the face of
the great precipice, yet it is clothed
with wild plants almost from top to
bottom. So hidden are they by the per-
pendicular wall and the artificial cop
ing above it that many of them are hard
to make out, but new discoveries are
made at every change of position. The
columbine, Aquilegia Canadensis, loves
the spot so well that it's bright red bios.
sons appear sometimes after they have
disappeared from gardens. The plant
is the most yenturesome and hardy of
any there, and appears in a rock crevce
where nothing else but the bare wall is
seen. 1t is difficult to understand how
it subsists or even clings to the wall,
but it is content and holds out no hands
for sustenance except to the humid air.
One or two wild roses are there, and the
wild gooseberry sends up sturdy stems
near the top of the wall. a Splraea,
probably tomentOsa, is at home, and
golden rods, Rhus toXicodendron and
probably Rhus ralicans, as it is every
where about the falls and Ampelopsis
quinquefolia. Creepers are rampant,
hardly less 50 than in the woods on
Goat island, where the wild grape at
tops of quite tall trees. The wild
grape on the edge of the gorge was
just setting its crop and showed a
luXuriance of punches that would
charm vineyardist. Bittersweet and
Solanum Dulcamara are also there.
These vines do not venture far down the
wall as they need soil, but they are
in the spirit of the place, and are seer
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
- summit.
1t is this acceptance Of the wild spirit
of Niagara that makes its flora so ac-
ceptable. 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 Indifferent
ly successful, and the ambitious ever
greens that were planted on Bath island
are all gone. But this makes no differ
ence with the wild plants; they hofr
ish everywhere 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 cultivation, be-
cause they demand atmospheric condi-
tons that cannot be transplanted
with them. The result is that they
linger awhile out of their native ele-
ment and then disappear. Let Niagara
pretty generally alone and it will never
want for flora that is appropriate TO
it. There is very doubtful need of the
forest tree nursery that is made TO dis
figure a part of Goat island, or the
thicket of snowberry, Symphoricarpus
racemosus, that begins to shut in the
drive from Bath island.-Garden and
Forest.