Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1896-09-15
Alexandria Q6azette.
TUESDAY EVENING, SEPT. 15, 1896
PLANT LIFE AT NIAGARA.
A View of Things Noe Ssen by Most Wis
itors at the Great Cataract.

Nature never fails to give us her
overtones when she plays her great
symphonies any more than do the
great composers. We cannot fail to
catch the softening and mellowing
thus lent to tho musical strain, for
hearing is involuntary, but we
must so often DO 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 devotee
of field science is never moro aware
of this than on 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 the great sheet
of water, but at the rocks that con-
tinue the gorge northward.
There is often scarcely a handful
of soil to the square foot, and some
times 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 perpendicular wall and
the artificial coping above it that
many of them are hard to make out,
but new discoveries are made at ev-
cry change of position. The colum-
bine (Aquilegia canadensis) loves
the spot so we'll that its bright red
blossoms appear sometimes after
they have disappeared from gardens.
The plant is the most venturesome
and hardy of any there and appears
in @ rock crevice where nothing else
but the bare wall is seen. 1t is diff
cult to understand how it subsists
or even clings to the wall, but 1t 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 spicea, probably tomentosa,
is at home, and goldenrods (Rhus
toxieodendrum) and probably Rhus
radicans, as it is everywhere about
the falls, and Ampelopsis qwinque-
folia. Creepers are rampant, hardly
less so than in the woods on Goat is
land, where the wild grape attains
great size and runs freely over the
tops of quite tall trees. The wild
grape on the edge of the gorge was
just setting it's crop and showed a
luxuriance of punches that would
charm vineyardist. Bittersweet
and Solanum duloamara are also
there. These vines do not venture
far down the wall, as they need soil,
but they are in tho spirit of the
place and are seen rising from its
base and sometimes making their
way far up the moist surface, while
the auuilegia 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.
1t 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 e cultivated park Is so far in
differently successful, and the am
bilious evcrgreens that were plant
ed on Bath island are all gone. But
this makes mo 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 cultiva-
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 then 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 a part of Goat island or the
thioket of snowberry (Symphoricar-
pus racemosus) that begins to shut
In the drive from Bath island.-Gar-
den and Forest.
To,t c,,,,r,ar o,o or 49, ,xxo,51b;lJ