X2~

t

Y

LONG ISLAND
BOTANICAL SOCIETY

Vol. 11, No.4

The Quarterly Newsletter

Oct.-Dec. 2001

Lopped Trees of Long Island

Philip Marshall,

Yale University

One of the curious features of the landscape of
Long Island is what is termed “lopped trees”, old
oaks ( Quercus spp., usually Q. alba) strangely
deformed with right-angle bends in their boles near
the base, found along property boundaries (often
on roadsides) and the borders of farmland, and
sometimes in the middle of the woods. Despite
their strange and striking form, lopped trees are
seldom found alone, and can usually be found in
linear arrangements with other similarly contorted
trees. The best known examples are a row of trees
on the north side of the Northern State Parkway
just east of Route 110 in Melville, but most are
farther east in Brookhaven and on the South Fork.
Often familiar landmarks, lopped trees are not
natural but are rather the products of human
manipulation, a part of the cultural landscape.
This much is accepted, but what was their
purpose?

Lopped trees bear a striking and uncanny
resemblance to “trail marker trees” found across
the Midwest, oaks bent over when young by Native
Americans to indicate the routes of footpaths
(Jannsen, 1940), but no one has ever seriously
suggested that lopped trees are part of Long
Island’s native heritage, even though some people
call them “Indian trees”. Although past attempts
at coring lopped trees to determine their precise
age have been unsuccessful, owing to heart rot
(Richard Stavdal, pers. comm.), it has always been
assumed that the trees are relics of the early years
of European settlement on Long Island. There
are records of British landowners pinning down

young oak trees to produce the curved “compass
timber” needed for wooden shipbuilding (Albion
1 965), but this was not likely produced on Long
Island, despite the historical prominence of that
industry here. The salient feature of lopped trees
would appear to be their linear association with
the edges of old farm fields and the borders of
property and where there is one there are usually
others to be found in a straight line on either side
of it.

It is frequently asserted that lopped trees, under
the name of “bound trees” or “line trees”, were
intended as markers of property boundaries, bent
over horizontally at sapling size by farmers
asserting their ownership of land (e.g. Murphy,
[1964] 1991). However, lopped trees and bound
trees are not the same. Bound trees, also known
by surveyors as “witness trees”, are indeed
mentioned in many land deeds from the colonial
era as markers of boundaries, but these were single

(continued on page 40)

Illustration: Audrey Watson-Wigley

A lopped Tupelo tree (/Vyssa sylvaticd) in Wading River

Page 37

Long Island Botanical Society
Founded: 1986 Incorporated: 1989

The Long Island Botanical Society
is dedicated to the promotion of
field botany and a greater under-
standing of the plants that grow

wild on Long Island, New York.

Executive Board
President
Eric Lamont

(631) 722-5542

Vice President
Skip Blanchard

(631)421-5619

Treasurer
Carol Johnston

(516) 676-6648

Recording Secretary
Barbara Conolly

(516) 922-5935

Corresponding Secretary
John Potente

(631)361-6756

Committee Chairpersons

Local Flora
Steven Clemants

(718) 941-4044

Field Trips
Jenny Ulsheimer

(516) 625-0989

Programs
Zu Proly

(516) 676-4023

Membership
Lois Lindberg

(516) 922-0903

Conservation
John Turner

(516) 829-3368

Karen Blumer

(631) 821-3337

Education

Mary Laura Lamont

(631)722-5542

Thomas Stock

(631) 727-5250

Hospitality
Betty Lotowycz

(516) 676-2047

Jane Blanchard

(631)421-5619

Editor

John Potente

(631) 361-6756

Membership

Annual Dues of $ 1 5 payable to:

Long Island Botanical Society
Mail to:

Lois Lindberg, Membership Chairperson

45 Sandy Hill Road

Oyster Bay, New York 11771-3111

Article & News Submissions
Long Island Botanical Society
P.O. Box 5001

Hauppauge, New York 11788
libs@nativeamerica.org

Printed by Native America

Society News

Orient Beach Ordeal: Orient Beach State Park contains a
recreational area for activity and an area that is protected as a preserve.
The protected area is a pristine area that is environmentally sensitive.
For that reason the New York State Department of Parks has
designated it a protected area and restrictions have been placed upon
it to preserve the integrity of the habitat. Limited access for viewing
is provided, however, by foot. Rare plants and breeding shorebirds,
which have been disturbed and eliminated from other beachfront
areas are now limited to this unique refuge. Rare maritime plants do
not necessarily grow in one spot. They often require and grow in
migrating areas along the beach. Shore birds need a place with
adequate areas to nest, feed and protect their young. They rely upon
large areas of open sand along the beach to evade predators such as
crows, foxes and raccoons. Recently, a small group argued that they
would like to utilize this area of Orient State Park, as well, to pull up
and anchor their boats. The idea of having the luxury to pull a boat
up on this beach may seem harmless, but it will degrade and burden
the environment there. This will result in cornering the rare plants
and birds into even smaller areas within the protected areas and will
further jeapordize their welfare. Most individuals and boaters
understand this and respectfully abide by the rules. Deregulating
the park habitat guide rules will add to the disruption of the rare
plant habitat and the interference of the breeding for the shorebirds.
The small group is pulling local publicity stunts by bringing their
boats to shore deliberately, illegally and actively pressuring the parks
department to forfeit the scope of the habitat protection. You may
let the parks department know that you support their ongoing vigilance
to enforce the restrictions maintaining the status quo
by writing to:

Margaret Reilly, Director

New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation
Long Island Region
Belmont Lake State Park
Babylon, New York 1 1 702-0247
Felling Stony Brook Forest: While members of the Coalition to
Save Stony Brook Forest were helping relieve the NYC tragedy, a
court decision allowed the leveling of the remaining portion of the
Stony Brook Forest. Ward Melville Heritage Organization promptly
initiated a bulldozing operation to knock down the trees of this vestige
of America the Beautiful. For further information you may contact:
Coalition to Save Stony Brook Forest: (631) 751-7549.

Editor’s Note: The final portion of “Classification for Mature
Forests and Related Woody Vegetaion on Long Island, New
York” by Andrew Greller has been postponed
and will appear in the next issue of the LIBS newsletter.

Page 38

Highlights of Recent Field Trips

Barbara Conolly

Wicks/Froelich Farm August 18, 2001

LIBS conducted a summer inventory of the
plants here during its walk. As expected, there
were a lot of Goldenrods in the overgrown farm
area (species rugosa, speciosa, canadensis var.
sco bra, nemoralis and odor a) along with tangles
of Mutliflora Rose and great stands of Mugwort
and Giant Ragweed. But there was also a small
group of Velvet-leaf ( Abutilon theophrasti ) and
large stands of Maryland Tick-trefoil {Desmodium
marilandicum ) with Wild Sensitive Plants
( Chamaecrista nictitans). There were a few
Deptford Pinks ( Dianthus armeria ) still in bloom,
some handsome clumps of Hyssop-leaved
Thoroughwort {Eupatorium hyssopifolium ) and a
couple of Bush-clovers ( Lespedeza capitata and
Lespedeza virginica). Asters were not in full
bloom yet, but there were a few samples of White
Woodland Aster ( Aster divaricatus) and Heath
Aster {Aster ericoides ). There was a big
discussion over a tall purple thistle, but Donald
House resolved the problem with his trusty
Cronquist: it was Cirsium vulgar e, the Bull thistle.

But the highlight of the trip, quite unexpected,
were Slender Lady’s-tresses {Spiranthes lacera
var. gracilis). About 40 of them were blooming in
the more open stands of Goldenrod and were
identified by the bright green spot on their throats.
Nice to end a field trip on a bright note!

Editorial Comment: After weighing the choices
of selectively removing the invasive plants versus
mowing and then turning over the soil for a
grassland restoration, Huntington Audubon
Society (stewards of Wicks Farm) has elected to
till the soil and plant nonlocal genotype grasses.
(See LIBS Vol. 1 1 , no. 3 page 32). This technique
is a potential hazard for existing native plants
on the site. Hopefully, the significant plants such
as the Lady’s-tresses will be marked and
protected.

The Hauppauge Springs September 15, 2001

Eighteen of us met on a gorgeous sunny day at
a bank parking lot along the Veterans Memorial
highway in Smithtown. First, John Potente
described the Springs area and showed us the
layout with some excellent aerial photos he had
taken in the past year.

We then walked along the busy highway for a
bit, only to be stopped in our tracks by a loud call
from Ray Welch: “Eve found the springs!” And
indeed he had - cast off by the road edge from an
old rusty truck.

The woods containing Red Maple, White Ash,
Tulip Tree, Tupelo and an occasional Oak also
contained a fine specimen of Atlantic White Cedar
{Chamaecyparis thyoides ) and a couple of
Umbrella Trees {Magnolia tripet ala).

A swampy area contained a thick margin of
Water -willow {Decodon verticillatus) behind
which rose a tall growth of Swamp Beggar-ticks
{Bidens connata) which Peterson notes can grow
to seven feet.

But the thrill of the day was to stand by the clear
rushing water of the spring where Dave Thompson
of Trout Unlimited had taken the picture of a good-
sized Brook Trout to grace the cover of a recent
issue of the Hauppauge Spring Newsletter. Dave
was with us and stated that he had previously
caught an eleven inch Brook Trout on the north
side of the highway where the culvert empties on
its way to the sea .

Who says we don’t have clear cold trout streams
on Long Island?

Atlantic White Cedar ( Chamaecyparis thyoides )
present in the Hauppauge Springs

Page 39

Photo: John E. Potente

Lopped Trees (continued from page 37)
large old-growth trees (probably marked on their
boles with a knife or timber scribe) from which
property lines could be followed along certain
compass bearings; they were the benchmarks of
the old “metes-and-bounds” system of land
surveying. Bound trees were used to establish
municipal boundaries as well as those of private
holdings; for example, until permanent stone
markers were set in the nineteenth century, the
Brookhaven-Riverhead town line was legally
defined by a certain Pepperidge tree ( Nyssa
sylvatica) in Wading River, the Brookhaven-
Smithtown town line was defined by a tree of
unknown species on the shore of Lake
Ronkonkoma, and the Brookhaven-Southampton
town line was defined by “the Bound Tree at
Seatuck” on the Seatuck River in Eastport (Bayles,
1882). The “metes-and-bounds” method of
surveying was later replaced by more systematic
techniques, as in the General Land Survey of
Public Lands in the West, initiated in 1785
(McIntosh, 1 962), which required several “bearing
trees” to be recorded by species at each section
comer with two trees recorded at quarter comers.
“Line trees”, properly defined, were the
occasional trees growing directly on the lines
between comers, and were recorded as found.
Quantitative studies of records of “bearing tree”
and “line tree” species from the General Land
Survey and other surveys have enabled ecologists
to reconstmct the forest vegetation of many of
these areas at the time of European settlement.

There are several independent and very specific
early accounts of the prominence of hedges in the
landscape of eastern Long Island, a feature that
added to the quaintness of the region in the eyes
of many travellers. Gabriel (1921) went so far as
to speak of “the hedges of old England”. Rather
than serving as boundary markers per se, I would
suggest (following Overton, 1943; Baily, 1956;
and Bayles, 1 962) that rows of lopped trees on
Long Island are relics of hedges used to fence
farmland. Hedges made by the English settlers of
the East End in adaptation the British tradition of
farm hedges of native plant materials. Instead of
planted hawthorn ( Crataegus ), blackthorn ( Prunus
spinosa ), or privet or “Prim” ( Ligustrum ), which
were found to be susceptible to insect infestation
(“In the town of East Hampton, in Suffolk County,

by the best computation, at least two hundred
miles of good prim-hedge died in the course of
two or three years, which was a greater loss to the
inhabitants than if every house in the township
had been burnt down at the time” [L’Hommedieu,
1794]), native oaks were substituted and treated
in just the same manner (“Young oaks... have
answered well for a hedge by loping the same on
a ditch... a good fence against cattle and sheep,”
[L”Hommedieu, 1794]). Still, these hedges
probably served only as a supplement to wooden
post-and -rail fences. The expense of timber was
probably the motivation for hedging, as Long
Island was largely cleared of forest cover by the
middle of the eighteenth century (Murphy, [1964]
1991). In the place of trees were many thousands
of cattle (Murphy, [1964] 1991; Bidwell &
Falconer, 1941). It is known that hedges and
earthen ditches (a feature also associated with
lopped trees on Long Island) were used instead
of wooden fences or stone walls by some colonial
farmers of treeless Cape Cod and Martha’s
Vineyard in Massachusetts (Thoreau [ 1 865] 1 988 ;
Banks, 1911; Russell, 1976; Allport 1990), and
certainly the great expense of replacement with
wooden fencing was the reason given by Nathaniel
Prime in 1 845 for the persistence of the “fences
of living material” (Prime, 1845) he saw in
Southampton at that time. There are accounts of
New-England-style stone walls in such places as
Strong’s Neck in Setauket (Thompson, 1 839) and
Gardiner’s Island (Todd [1907 ] 1968), but stone
was not an option for most Island farmers. When
George Washington visited Long Island in 1790
he wrote with disapproval in his diary that, “Their
fences, where there is no Stone, are very
indifferent: frequently of plashed trees of any &
every kind which have gown by chance,”
(Washington, 1978). Plashing or pleaching is a
traditional method of forming a hedge, or
thickening the base of a thinly-grown existing
hedge, by cutting partway through upright stems,
bending them over horizontally and then weaving
them together (Latin plectere , “to weave”) to form
a continuous barrier while forcing thick new
sprout growth from latent and epicormic buds.
Also called “hedgelaying” in Britain (Blisset, n.d.;
Dowdeswell, 1987), this is precisely the method
used to “lop” trees on Long Island, except that
the pole-size oaks required a small boy to climb

Page 40

Photo: John E. Potente

them to bring them down with his weight
(Overton, 1943 ; Bayles, 1962)! As Washington
said, trees of every kind were used, and there are
accounts of flowering dogwood ( Cornus florida ),
American chestnut ( Castanea dentata ), and
hickories ( Carya ) in “the old hedges of Long
Island,” and with a liberal admixture of Rubus and
Smilax they became “the abode of singing birds
and of the more timid marauders of the field”
(Flint, 1896: 29), perhaps a determining factor in
the ecology of some animal species of the Island
in a former age of open fields. A 1 903 photograph
by Howard Conklin (now in the collection of the
Queens Borough Public Library) of a row of
Lopped Black Cherries (. Prunus serotina) in
Bellport is evidence that this tree species was used
as well, but with few exceptions only the long -
lived oaks appear to remain now. With the past
century or more to reassert their arborescent habit,
and with stems and limbs lost to self-thinning and
self-pruning, their former place in farm hedges has
become obscure.

The author wishes to thank the support of the

Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship from the

Garden Club of America and the Carpenter-

Sperry-Mellon Fellowship from Yale Universiy.

The author with a lopped tree in Robert Cushman
Murphy County Park in Manorville, Long Island.

References

ALBION, R.G. 1 965. Forests and sea power; the timber
problem of the Royal Navy 1 652- 1 862. Hamden, CT:
Archon.

ALLPORT, S. 1990. Sermons in stone: the stone walls of
new England and New York. New York: Norton. 123
BAILEY, P. 1956. Historic Long island in picture, prose
and poetry. Amityville, NY: The Long Island Forum. 75
BANKS, C. E. 1911. The history of Martha’s Vineyard.
Boston: George Dean.

BAYLES, R.M. 1882. The town of Brookhaven. IN:
Munsell, ed.: History of Suffolk County. New York: W. W.
Munsell & Co.

BAYLES, T.R. 1962. Old lopped tree fences. Long Island
Forum, December: 268-272. [Problematically, the material
in this article appears in large part to have been extracted
from Overton (1943), without attribution]

BID WELL, P.W., and Falconer, J.I., 1941. History of
agriculture in the northern US. New York: Peter Smith.
BLISSETT, P. n.d. Hedges in our landscape. Website at
http://www.hedgelayer.freeserve.co.uk/hedlan.htm/.
DOWDESWELL, W.H. 1987. Hedgerows and verges. Lon-
don: Allen & Unwin.

FLINT, M.B. 1896. Early Long Island. New York: G.P.
Putman’s Sons.

GABRIEL, R.H. 1921. The evolution of Long Island. New
Haven: Yale Univesity Press. 38

•JANSSEN, R.E. 1940. Trail signs of the Indians. Natural
History, February: 116-117

L’HOMMEDIEU, E. 1794. On ditches and hedges. Trans-
actions of the Society Instituted in the State of N.Y. for the
Promotion of Agr., Arts, and Manufacturers II: 103-105.
McINTOSH, R.P. 1 962. The forest cover of the Catskill
Mountain region, new York as indicated by land survey
records. American Midland Naturalist 68 (2): 409-423
MURPHY, R.C. [1964] 1991. Fish-shape Paumanok: na-
ture and man on Long Island. Great Falls, VA: Waterline
Books. 40-41

OVERTON, F. 1943. Old lopped-tree fences. The Long Is-
land Forum, March: 49-50.

PRIME, N.S. 1845. A history of Long Island. New York:
Robert Carter. 54

RACKMAN, O. 1990. Trees and woodland in the British
landscape. London: J.M. Cent & Son. Revised Edition.
RUSSELL, H.S. 1 976. A long, deep furrow: three centuries
of farming in New England. Hanover, NH: University Press
of New England.

STRONG, K. W. 1 948. Old wills and bound trees. The Long
Island Forum, August: 149-154.

THOMPSON, B.F. 1 839. History of Long Island. New York:
E.French. 275

THOREAU, H.D. [1865] 1988. Cape Cod. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.

TODD, C.B. [1907] 1968. In olde New York. Port Wash-
ington, NY: Ira J. Friedman. 194

WASHINGTON, G. 1978. The diary of George Washing-
ton from 1789-1791. Williamstown, MA; Comer House
Publishers. 128

WHITNEY, G.G. 1994. From coastal wilderness to fruited
plain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Page 41

Philip Marshall Philip Marshall

Lopped tree on Accabonac Road in East Hampton.

A knobby lopped tree in Manorville.

White Oak on Montauk Highway in East Hampton

Boundary ditch on Edge of Woods Road in Water Mill.

Page 42

A lopped tree on College Road in Selden

A lopped tree on Accabonac Road in East Hampton.

A lopped tree on Old Sag Harbor Road in Noyak.

A lopped tree at the Maple Swamp in Flanders.

Page 43

Orchids

--at arms length, but not for picking--
Gigi Spates

For years in a bog 1 along a boardwalk at the
Quogue Wildlife Refuge (QWR), a small
population of White-fringed Orchids ( Platanthera
blephariglottis) had held their own. Coming into
the 1990’s, the population dwindled to become a
scattering of six. As these slender, graceful plants
were being crowded by a succession of wetland
shrubs and young trees.

Now to be accurate about it, White-fringed
Orchids, no matter how many in the grouping there
are, do grow scattered in a bog amongst other bog
plants. The first and foremost plant, indeed the
base plant of the bog habitat, is sphagnum
( Sphagnum spp.). What is basic about this yellow-
green moss, tinged with red? It has evolved to
retain many more times its own weight in water.
Carpeting the bog, the sphagnum even in severe
drought conditions holds water at ground level
which allows other bog plants to take hold and
flourish.

In the particular bog where the Quogue Wildlife
Refuge’s White-fringed Orchids grow, there are
also populations of two insect-digesting plants.
The most noticeable one is the Pitcher Plant
(Sarracenia purpurea ), here in small but showy
stands with their odd pitcher-shaped green and

Helping to revert the site to bog habitat at Quogue

1. Author’s Note: In the following article, I refer to certain wetland areas
as bogs, that being the old designation for what we now know here on Long
Island to be more accurately called Coastal Plain Poor Fens.

dark red leaves and flowers. The other, and a very
diminutive one, is the Round-leaved Sundew,
( Drosera rotundifolia). Poking through the

sphagnum, their stemmed leaves are adorned with
glue-tipped hairs. What a curious and exciting
discovery is this bog!

Coming back now to the dangerous decrease in
the number of White-Fringed Orchids, in the
summer of 1996, as director of the QWR, I
approached Eric Lamont for advice on
management of this and several other pocket bogs
around Old Ice Pond. We were concerned about
these rare plants as well as the well-being of their
habitat. Eric and I knew that to keep the bog plants
thriving, we needed to manage for more space and
sunlight and to do that we needed to set back the
natural succession of shrubby plants. Removing
woody plants would also keep the bog from drying
out, for as those plants matured, they would require
a great deal of water and their roots would raise
dry islands within the wet bog. Thus, in 1 996, we
set out to plan for a gathering of willing and able
laborers, for appropriate tools of the trade and, of
course, the necessary DEC wetlands permit. (Even
the DEC-managed facility must apply and receive
permission to work within the boundaries of a
wetland.)

What was the result of this warm weather prepa-
ration? A band of armed pruners in the middle of
that very next winter! To avoid disturbance as
much as possible Eric recommended selective
pruning in the depth of the dormant season. He

Eric and Gigi by the restored bog site in the summer
of 2001 with eighty-eight White-fringed orchids
( Platanthera blephariglottis ) in bloom.

Page 44

Photo: John E. Potente

summoned several of his Riverhead High School
Environmental Studies students. I lured several
Southampton College students doing cooperative
education work at the Refuge and even snagged
my sister. Bundled to the cold and delicately step-
ping, our little group pruned the encroaching
woody vegetation such as Inkberry (Ilex glabra ),
High Bush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum),
Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) and Red Cedar
(Juniperus virginiana) down to soil level in sev-
eral bog areas along the Main Trail of the refuge.
It was tedious but interesting work and , with the
management goal in mind, even exciting. We
worked diligently in several different bog areas;
in one we were setting back succession not for
White-fringed Orchids, but for Rose Pogonias
(Pogonia ophioglossoides ), another freshwater
wetland orchid native to Long Island.

That management work occurred three and a
half years ago. This summer of 2001, Eric
Lamont, John Potente and I counted eighty-eight
White-fringed Orchids in bloom in August. Wow,
what a sight and what a satisfaction!

Beyond preserving the diversity of the Quogue
Wildlife Refuge and its habitats, the importance
of setting back succession in these bogs is spe-
cifically geared to preserve this site of White-
fringed Orchids. Several of the remaining sites
of this orchid on Long Island are threatened for
various reasons, as this site had been. I would
also add that maintaining these bog areas at
Quogue will help not only other unusual plants
like the large Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon)
but populations of animals such as the Spotted
Turtle (Clemmys guttata). The Refuge harbors a
small population of this species of special con-
cern, a ranking just under threatened. Spotteds
prefer bogs, headwaters of ponds and sometimes
swamps, rather that the open pond. Thus, we can
expect our management work to have multiple
successes.

The blossoming White-fringed Orchids of 2001
brought the only reward necessary for the
management work of several years ago. Their
spectacular beauty also brought an enthusiasm to
help maintain these wetlands in the future. For,
to quote from Lance Biechele’s article, “Secret
Relationships Among Our Native Orchids”, in the
April- June 2001 edition of the LIBS newsletter,
“When planning for orchid preservation, one must

bear in mind the need for adequate bordering
wetland areas to allow for pioneer orchid plants
to establish themselves.”

I personally hope that in late July/early August,
you take a trip to the Quogue Wildlife Refuge to
see, up close, the striking beauty of the White-
fringes. They have a long lower lip with eyelash-
like projections. They are, as the common name
states, white, and a very pure white indeed. To
see so many stark white beauties during the heat
of the summer in one small site is to be mightily
impressed. It reminds me of a part of on old Robert
Frost poem:

A saturated meadow,

Sun-shaped and jewel-small,

A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;

Where winds were quite excluded,

And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers—

A temple of the heat.

Where else can you be at arm’s length to rare
plants like the sun-loving White-fringed Orchid,
the Pitcher Plant and Round-leaved Sundew, even
to lay down on the boardwalk and gently touch
the cool wetness of the sphagnum moss?

Go there next summer, and enjoy them— for their
rarity, beauty and uniqueness. But remember,
look, but do not disturb.

Page 45

Notes on the White-fringed Orchid
on Long Island, New York

Eric Lamont

The White-fringed Orchid was described as a
new species in 1 805 by the German botanist Carl
Ludwig von Willdenow (1765-1812), based upon
a collection from Pennsylvania. Willdenow
included the new orchid in the genus Orchis and
gave it the species name blephariglottis . In 1 824,
the English botanist William Hooker (1785-1865)
transferred the species to the genus Habenaria
and in 1835 John Lindley ( 1799- 1865) transferred
the species to the genus Platanthera. Today, most
bota^fejk^ow the White-fringed Orchid as
Platanthera blephariglottis, but some botanists
still refer to it a£ Habenaria blephariglottis.

The oldest herbariunrtdllection of the White-
fringed Orchid from Long Island dates back to
1869 (just a few years after the American Civil
War), when Elihu Miller collected a specimen
from a swamp at the “Forge” near Riverhead.
That specimen was deposited at the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden where it remains to this day.
Historically, at least 33 different populations of
the White-fringed Orchid have been known to
occur on Long Island (Figure 1). Today, this
number has been reduced to approximately 16
extant populations and several of these remaining
populations are in serious danger of being
destroyed by humans. The large populations of
the White-fringed Orchid that used to adorn the
wetlands of Brooklyn and Queens have been
totally destroyed. Only two small populations
of this orchid remain in Nassau County and only
one population is currently known from western
Suffolk County.

Figure 1. Past and present locations of White-fringed
Orchid {Platanthera blephariglottis ) on LI. [From: Atlas
of the Orchids of Long Island, New York , by Eric Lamont
(1996), published by Torrey Botanical Society.]

The east end of Long Island is the final refuge
for this showy orchid, but in recent years even the
East End populations have been threatened with
destruction. For example, in the Township of East
Hampton a roadside population of the White-
fringed Orchid consisted of between 150 to 200
flowering individuals in the mid to late 1980’s
(with at least twice that many sterile plants).
However, due to uncontrolled roadside mowing
by the Town’s Department of Highways only one
individual plant flowered in 2001! A similar
decline was being noted from a population at
Quogue Wildlife Refuge (QWR) in the Township
of Southampton. But the loss of individuals was
due to the process of ecological succession, not
by the deliberate action of humans. The QWR
population of the White-fringed Orchid was
declining due to the loss of suitable habitat; shrubs
were encroaching upon the open wetland, thus
crowding out the sun-loving orchids and other bog
plants. During the 1980’s, dozens of flowering
orchids occurred at the Quogue site, but by the
mid-1 990’s, only six individuals remained. It was
feared that if the habitat was not managed and
restored, the orchids would completely die out.

White-fringed Orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis)
Blephariglottis , from the Greek blepharon (“eyelid”) and
glotta (“tongue”), referring to the lower lip (or tongue)
of the flower with its finely fringed edges.

Page 46

Photo: John E. Potente

An additional note on the
White-fringed Orchid
on Long Island, New York

Eric Lamont

For more than 100 years, orchidologists have
recognized that northern populations of the White-
fringed Orchid are distinctly different from
southern populations. Southern plants stand twice
to four times as tall as northern ones, but more
significant are the technical differences in the
flower. The spur of southern plants, for example,
is about twice as long as that on northern plants,
probably to accommodate the larger southern
butterflies that pollinate it.

The robust White-fringed Orchid with its
enormous brilliant-white flowers is truly
conspicuous in the wet meadows of the South and
in 1896 George Nash decided to name the plant
just that when he described it as a new species,
Habenaria conspicua. In 1908, Oakes Ames
concluded that H. conspicua was indeed different
from its northern relative, H. blephariglottis, but
was not sufficiently distinct to be recognized as a
separate species. Ames recognized H. conspicua
as a variety of H. blephariglottis. Today,
orchidologists still recognize a northern and
southern variety of the White-fringed Orchid: var.
blephariglottis (northern) and var. conspicua
(southern), usually included in the genus
Platanthera.

According to Carlyle Luer, author of The Native
Orchids of the United States and Canada
(published in 1975 by The New York Botanical
Garden) the southern variety conspicua occurs
“locally along the Gulf Coast and ranges along
the southern Atlantic Seaboard as far north as the
pine barrens of New Jersey.”

In 1993, Paul Martin Brown published^ Field
and Study Guide to the Orchids of New England
and New York. To my knowledge, this is the only
publication that describes the range of variety
conspicua as extending north to Long Island, New
York; variety blephariglottis is described as
occurring “inland” throughout New York and New
England.

During the past 20 years, I have observed the
White-fringed Orchid in the field on Long Island
and have studied herbarium collections at the New
York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden,
New York State Museum, Planting Fields
Arboretum, Harvard University Herbaria and
Cornell University. All Long Island specimens of
the White-fringed Orchid that I have examined
have been assigned to the northern variety
blephariglottis.

Page 47

Photo: John E. Potente

Long Island Botanical Society
Muttontown Preserve
Muttontown Lane
East Norwich. New York 11732

Programs

October 9, 2001* Tuesday, 7:30 PM
John E. Potente: John will give a photo-
graphic slide presentation on native plants with
examples of a few local habitat restorations in:
“Restoring the Long Island Genotypes”.
Location: Earth Science Center,

SUNY at Stony Brook

November 13, 2001* Tuesday, 7:30 PM
George Davis: George will present us with
a down and dirty look at our world of
saprophytes in his talk on: “Mushrooms”
Note: Executive Board Meeting @ 6:30PM
All members are welcome to attend.
Location: Bill Paterson Nature Center,

Muttontown Preserve, East Norwich

December 11, 2001* Tuesday, 7:30 PM
Joanne Knapp: Joanne will present a look
at rare and unusual east coast native wildflowers
in her slide show “Neat Places-Neat Plants”
Location: Bill Paterson Nature Center,

Muttontown Preserve, East Norwich

* Refreshments and informal talk begin at 7:30.
Formal meeting starts at 8:00 PM.

Directions: 516-571-8500

Page 48