Part 17

The proverb, that all things come round to him who waits, may for the orchis-hunter be paraphrased rather, “All things come round to him who tramps.” I was destined sooner or later, by lonely lake or mountain bog, to find the Purple-Fringed Orchis for which I had so long searched. Later in the season, on July 8th, I visited Notch Brook, North Adams, a stream flowing down through the northern Notch Valley. Wandering past the beautiful Cascade, I slowly explored the wooded vales among the Ragged Mountains. The afternoon was sultry; the sun pouring down upon the parched sod of the rocky pasture-land had shrivelled up the grasses, and now the bushes themselves were turning brown, and the leaves curling up on their edges. Through the trembling haze, partially due to the vile smoke of civilization, which arose from the various factories in the City, the sun appeared as a round, red ball of fire.

I had chosen a poor day for walking, but there were cool, shady retreats on the way, where I could find rest and shelter. I clambered down from the slopes of Aurora’s Hill, into the shadow of the valley’s smoke, crossing the sluggish stream of the Ashuilticook, by way of the iron bridge in Flag’s Meadows. I climbed to the swamps along the Ragged Hills leading to The Notch. Here the slopes of pasture-lands above State Street are clothed with bushes and brambles, through which rough, stony paths wind, where dwell the children of sunny Italy. Witt’s Ledge of lime and marble stone lies along this swell. These rough paths, with wooden steps leading summitward, were new to me.

Upon the brow of the hill was a small pond hidden at the head of an extensive swamp, amid willows and lush tangled grasses, where little lads were bathing. It was one of those wild mountainous pasture-lands where blackberry briars and sweet-fern run riot, and where the pepper-bushes and tall brakes shed forth an aromatic perfume under the full blaze of the summer sun. About the drier portions of the swamp were well-worn cow-paths, winding irregularly about the hummocks and boulders; and along the borders grew many familiar weeds and vines amid the swails and flags.

My boots being high and waterproof, I waded warily through the coarse lush grasses and cat-tail flags, encountering many deep pools. As I pushed forward, my heart sang in the very joy of living:

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, When our mother Nature laughs around; When even the deep blue heavens look glad, And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

At the west end of the cow-path I came suddenly upon one tall, Purple-Fringed Orchis. This was my first good fortune in finding this beautiful species, although I have since found many. I stood long in wonderment and silent adoration before this fragrant beauty of the weird and lonely bogland, rearing its strange fringed petals high above the common swamp grasses. Searching about to the north and south, I found a colony of six more spikes, which assured me that I would be justified in taking the first plant I had found; and placing it with the utmost care in my crowded vasculum, I then proceeded mountainward.

On the very brow of the hill I wound around to the left, entering the wood-road leading to the Notch Valley. A beautiful cold spring gushes out in the heart of this wood, under the hill at the right, near the Cascade path. I freshened my flowers here, and hurried on to the famous foot-bridge over Notch Brook, plunging on down through the hemlock wood to get a hurried view of the Cascade below.

As I returned homeward over the heated fields, I found the atmosphere very exhausting; and the flowers, although protected in my botanizing can, were wilted. Measuring the broad expanse that intervened between me and the hill of Aurora’s Lake, the journey seemed interminable. The distance was finally covered, however, and both my fatigue and the fact that I was late for tea were forgotten in the ecstasy of having found that first Purple-Fringed Orchis. This spike grew, and every bud expanded, until within a few days it became beautiful indeed, giving forth its delicate fragrance, and proving itself the prize I had esteemed it, as I lifted it from the dark earth of the bogland of northern Berkshire.

Over the Huckleberry Plains

Thou shalt gaze, at once, Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, And swarming roads, and there on solitudes That only hear the torrent and the wind.

BRYANT, Monument Mountain.

On July 17th, two days before departing from the Hoosac Valley, I was guided to a group of swamps lying along the summit of the Domelet. The brow of this mountain is yearly devastated by forest fires, after which it appears quite barren, save for the trees and bushes protected in the swamps. A few tall trees, branchless and blackened, stand as sentinels about the huckleberry plains. But soon the young and tender growth of oak, chestnut, and birch springs up on these rocky ridges, while the clearings everywhere are carpeted with low blueberry bushes.

Between the Domelet and the Dome lies a valley known as “Rocky Hollow.” The ledges of rock, walling it about, bear deep erosions in evidence of the Ice Age, when a gigantic glacier once crowned and rounded the Dome. The formation of these deep vales lying at its base is due to the moraines which flowed down from the ice-capped heights.

The little swamp-like pockets along the summit of the Domelet, where luxuriant trees locate the moisture of springs, were formed, perchance, when a deeper lake rolled over this peak.

In ascending the Domelet, we drove around the northern brow of the mountain, up by the County Road,—frequently called the “Dummy Road” in Pownal, because a deaf and dumb man once lived in the vicinity. Soon we turned off eastward, beyond the Dummy Farm, through the low bushes, until we came to a shady vale. We unhitched our horses from the wagon, and fastened them to trees; then we proceeded to explore the hills and plains, carrying pails for berries, and a basket and spade for collecting roots. The flora of this region appeared luxuriant all along the road, as well as over the ledges and plains. I found great numbers of plants of the Pink Moccasin-Flower (Cypripedium acaule). The unusually large leaves were of a deep dark green, with marked veining. Many stems bore seed-pods, which were the largest capsules for this species I have ever seen, being an inch and a half long, with circumference in proportion.

The beautiful emerald-green leaves and bright berries of the lily, Clintonia borealis, were almost as common as the piles of sphagnum and the tall brakes and ferns on the edges of these swamps; yet everything about recorded the ravages of the recent hailstorms. Very few seed-capsules could have remained to mature their seed this season, as most of the plants were either badly bruised, or broken from the root, causing the ovary of the flower to droop and wither. The low huckleberry bushes, known as the dwarf black species (Gaylussacia dumosa), were also damaged by the hailstorms, and were without fruit.

We came upon numbers of trees shattered by lightning, and blackened pine stubs and “turnovers” mingled among the beautiful evergreens of the tangled swamp. Low blueberry bushes, with rich heaps of ashes about their roots, covered the rolling, rock-bound plains, as far as one could see. Huckleberries usually thrive in the trail of forest fires. Indeed, the spring and autumn fires are often started by the huckleberry venders for the sole purpose of securing a better yield of fruit for supplying the market. These berries are among the small fruits which have not thus far taken kindly to cultivation, as has nearly every other wild berry in the markets to-day.

We found the third swamp eastward marked by the odd spires of the Scrub Pine (Pinus divaricata), and the Red Pine (Pinus resinosa), which is often wrongly called Norway Pine. These evergreen trees were known to Theophrastus before Christ. There were two kinds, the wild and the garden trees. Many species of each are described, the pines and spruces not being distinguished from each other.

I observed also many Dwarf Black or Double Spruces (Picea Mariana),—very dark green trees with pretty cones. The name for this tree originated with Theophrastus. It became in the Latin Pinus Mariana.

Frequently I saw a lone Balsam-Fir tree,—Abies balsamea. The name Abies comes down to us from remote antiquity, since this tree grew in Greece, and was valued by the learned physicians before Christ for the balsamic resin found in the bark of young trees. Matthiolus and Peter Bellon described this substance as bitter and aromatic, similar to citron-pills. In England, this resin was known to the writers of the sixteenth century as the Turpentine of Venice. In Canada, where this tree is abundant, it is called “Balm-of-Gilead Fir,” or “Canada Balsam.” It is common on the summit of the Dome. The powerful balsamic fluid drawn from it is now used medicinally. This species resembles the black spruce, save that it is of a silvery-green color, giving forth its peculiar fragrance, and producing small blisters on its trunk and branches, which the spruce does not.

Cedar is not plentiful in the Hoosac Valley region, our only species being American Arbor Vitæ (Thuja occidentalis), often called white cedar. Northward this tree forms extensive cedar swamps, which are rich haunts for species of Orchidaceæ.

On the border of the third swamp, and in the heart of it as well, grow High Huckleberry bushes (Vaccinium corymbosum). Blueberries are known in New England as huckleberries, and this common swamp species grows very tall. These bushes before me were over twelve feet in height. The Dwarf Low Blueberry (Vaccinium vacillans) grows from one to two feet high. The Early Dwarf species (Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum) is from six to fifteen inches in height, and produces our earliest market blueberries or huckleberries. The late Dwarf Low Blueberry ripens late in July.

The giant bushes in the swamp were laden with both green and ripe fruit. The cadet-blue berries hanging side by side with the soft velvety crimson-purple fruit of Shad-trees (Amelanchier Canadensis) made a pretty dash of color among the rich greens. Most country lads are familiar with the mountains at this season, and to go “shad-berrying” is one of their pleasures. In Pownal one hears of shadberry pies and cakes with happy anticipations.

These berries are fresh and sweet, eaten direct from the bending branches, but they become as bitter as medicine after being gathered for any length of time. Their white flowers often appear early in April and May, and brighten the waste places along with the Pigeon Cherry blossoms,—better known as Wild Red Cherries (Prunus Pennsylvanica). The flowers of the latter tree are also white, producing small light red cherries, which delighted flocks of returning pigeons before their extermination. The generic name Prunus is the Latin for plum or prune, derived from the Greek for all species commonly known as Sloes, Bullies, and Snags. The species of Prunus and Amelanchier are members of the Rose Family, as their miniature rose-blossoms indicate.

The original designations of huckleberry, or whortleberry, are also of ancient derivation. The species of Vaccinium were known to Virgil under the title of Vacinia, because their berries were little. The ancient writers recognized the black, white, and red fruited species. The white was seldom seen, however, while the red also was rare. The true English name for these berries in the sixteenth century was “whorts” or “whortleberries.” The black whorts grew commonly in many woods in England, in June and July.

After wandering through these swamps on the Domelet for two or three hours, and securing some fine roots of the Pink Moccasin-Flower for the New Haven garden, we slowly walked back toward our horses in the shaded vale, up and over ledges and rolling hills, passing a ridge of outcropping marble. We finally sat a while and drank in the cool mountain breeze, catching here and there through the trees the varied panorama of the great world below and the clouds above us. Distant sounds from human abodes rose to our ears faintly,—such as the engine whistle of the “Wild-cat” Express as it wound through the deep-cut valley of the Hoosac, nearly a thousand feet below us, westward beyond Mount Œta. On one of these marble ridges, along the plains, I found several plants of the Large Round-Leaved Orchis (Habenaria orbiculata).

We drove homeward by way of White Oaks Road,—southward along the entire summit of the Domelet,—getting an excellent view of the Hoosac and Green Rivers, following their serpentine windings about the hills and vales far below us near Williamstown. White Oaks is a remote corner of Pownal, lying, however, partly in Williamstown in northern Berkshire, a region locally noted for the earliest arbutus blossoms.

In nearly all the swamps I have visited, I have found a long procession of flowers marching close upon each other through the seasons,—from the trailing arbutus and the snowy dogwood blossoms in early April, to the golden-rod and asters of the late October days. Even as late as December 8th I have found the dainty dandelions and violets running wild with glee, only to be frozen before sunrise the following morning. It can be said that in some seasons different flowers bloom nearly every month, in the Hoosac Highlands, if the Transcript’s reports be true.