Part 24

“And all the rugged mountainside Thro’ billowy curves is seen; The roadsides meet in ample shade, With showers of light and golden glooms, And bubbling up the rocky ways The clustered laurel blooms.”

ELAINE GOODALE.]

The wildness of Broad Brook Valley is delightful. The stream rises in luxuriant swamps on the eastern summit of the Dome, between Stamford and Haystack Mountains. The Forks along the stream are formed by this one and others flowing down from Mount Hazen, which lies to the southeast of the Dome. The valley is comparatively wide, and the stream, as its name implies, is broad. The chasm bears scars of days when the heights to the northeast were capped with glaciers, towering thousands of feet above the present mutton-backed summits, which were formed into their dome-like shapes by the erosions of this ice sheet. The channel of the stream is full of tumbling boulders, and during April, when the snows are melting, a wilder brook is unknown in the Hoosac Valley. Three seasons it has become so rough and swollen that it has carried bridges and all else in its course before it, threatening the houses and little chapel, as it rushed downward to the Hoosac.

Bears inhabit these dark ravines, and wander close to the habitation of man in the Hollow. Not far from where we collected our flowers, a bear had been killed last season by two lads fishing in the stream. As I left the glen, and drove out over the moss-grown hills, and through the hollows, I found the ground red with wild strawberries. Needless to say, I paused until I had my fill of this luscious fruit, and I carried a birch-bark cornucopia of it away with me.

On June 18th I visited my great colony of Showy Reginæ in Rattlesnake Swamp. As they were not yet unfolded in their perfection of magenta coloring, I put up a warning on a tree near them not to rob the colony until photographed,—fearing some fisherman would behold and gather the blossoms. However, they were photographed successfully on the 20th.

The stumps and trees in this corner of the swamp are covered with dead boughs, laden with lichens and reindeer moss. A kind of moss known as Usnea hangs from the boughs of the trees above. The whole region is humid and luxuriant, and could almost deceive one into believing that he was in the jungles of the Southlands, instead of among the glooms of the Green Mountains. The beautiful Butterfly-fungus (Polypores) is especially interesting throughout this swamp, growing on dead trees and logs. Another pretty species, found on stumps and the earth, has scarlet-tinted cups, nestling in early spring amid the mosses. The trees and stones display both their gray and foliaceous lichens everywhere hereabout; and in the fields, the smoking puff-balls burst beneath the footsteps. Foxes Fire-Eyes is common in this region. It is decaying wood, green in color, said to be full of threads of phosphorescent fungi. During the night this wood gives out a soft, luminous light, which if it happens to come from a large stump, often frightens both travellers and horses along our woodland roads.

In the Swamp of Rattlesnake Brook may be found the Pitch or Torch-Pine (Pinus rigida), shad-bushes, white and black birches, chestnuts, high huckleberries, and small bushes of the Ague Tree (Sassafras), which seem rare here, but are abundant in southern New York. The odd spires of the double or black spruce are also found among the denizens of this region. From May until late November the swamp brings forth, in their season, arbutus, mountain snowberry vines, St. John’s wort, low huckleberry, the evergreen leaves of Gaultheria, prince’s pine, creeping evergreens, numerous rushes and sedges. Here, too, the goldthread entangles the roots of mosses and trilliums, while the Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), creeps along the mossy sides of the wood road, and in the deeper sphagnum about the stream. The rare Large Whorled Pogonia (Pogonia verticillata), of the Orchid Family, has been collected in this swamp for three seasons. This orchid is rare in New England, save in Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was first found in Vermont near High Bridge and Colchester by Messrs. Robbins and Oakes, the pioneer botanists, who passed through the State in 1829. The delicate emerald green leaves of Clintonia, marsh marigolds, Solomon’s seal, Shin-Leaf (Pyrola rotundifolia), liverwort, wild briar-roses, lambkill, blue lobelias, Labrador tea, yellow loosestrife, blue-fringed gentians, innumerable ferns, the spikes of the Tall-Green Orchis, plants of the Round-Leaved Orchis, the Pink Moccasin-Flower, and rarely the beautiful orchid, Arethusa bulbosa—all of these conspire to make the region a wilderness of beauty.

On an excursion to Thompson’s Brook, June 19th, near Meyers’s Sugar-Bush, I collected ferns and iris. As I descended to the hemlocks, near the waterfalls, I stumbled upon the late plants of the Showy Orchis (Orchis spectabilis), in bloom—which were fully two weeks past the regular flowering date. They had faded in the hills of Mosholu on May 19th.

I had heard of Wash-Tub Brook for years, and on July 5th started off to explore the valley and the cliffs of Gregor Rocks above North Pownal. A lime-rock ridge runs from the base of Mount Anthony southeasterly to the Glebe in Witch Hollow region. The soil of the latter is principally black slate, with outcropping boulders of marble and lime-rock. In 1899, Mr. W. W. Eggleston of Rutland had visited this valley, and reported the rare Rue-Wall Spleenwort and the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brakes growing abundantly on Gregor Rocks. I followed his path of cliff-climbing, as nearly as possible. Now that the orchid season was practically ended, I was giving my attention to hunting ferns, and I knew I should find them among the lime-rock cliffs. I had recently collected the Walking Fern in its native haunts. I proceeded up the valley of Wash-Tub Brook, passing the limestone mills northward, toward Mount Anthony and Peckham’s Hollow. Another stream, known as Hemlock Brook, flows down from the eastern slopes of Perkins’ Hill, and joins the Wash-Tub stream near the lime crushers. All the streams in this western corner of Pownal flow to the Hoosac River, while the streams from the northern summits of the Dome and Mount Œta flow northward to the Walloomsac.

For the greater part of the valley, Wash-Tub Brook flows through open pasture lands. The bed is broad and shallow, strewn with numerous small lime-rock boulders drifted down from the hills with the floods of spring. The larger boulders wear scars and dimpled erosions of the glacial period. I took time to explore the ledges above, where the depressions reveal the terraces of an ancient lake. The prevailing evergreen trees here appear to be hemlock and cedar—the American Arbor Vitæ—whose roots cling to the cliffs, their green spires lending a touch of coloring to the bare-faced walls.

I saw from the banks here the distant pot-hole formations in the brook, from which the stream had taken its name. As I approached these marble basins, I found three in succession—one above the other—following the course of the stream—a narrow passage eroded through crystalline marble and limestone. The first or lowermost one was like a small lakelet overflowing its brim. The second one was a typical pot-hole, revolving its stones in its whirling waters. The bowl was about six feet deep, of a circular—or rather elliptical form, about twenty-six feet in circumference. The stream entered through the middle of the northern rim, and had eroded a spout-like gutter, causing the water to flow in a rapid, seething manner as if poured into the basin below. Here the greenish water boiled and whirled, finally with an added force leaping forth through a deep spout over the lower rim of the pot, carrying with it small stones and marble dust—the lower rim thus being worn away. As the bowl becomes deeper, layers of rock will be cracked and broken, until finally the pot-hole formation will be destroyed. The upper or third basin is located in the harder portion of the lime and marble bed-rock, portions of the marble being highly polished. The marble brook-bed glittered in the noonday sunshine. Pot-holes are formed originally by a boulder, which—carried in the currents of a stream—lodges in a depression of the bed-rock. It bores gradually into its resting place, until, in the course of ages, it has worn the walls of its basin into a deep hollow, at the same time wearing itself away, at last being carried off as a pebble. It may be that these holes are sometimes formed in a slightly different way. Dimples and fissures often occur in rocks, and if the water and pebbles circle about these cracks they probably eat down through the soft layers of rock, and thus loosen a revolving stone from the bed-rock itself. It would then fit the pot-hole closely for ages, revolving as the currents become forceful in freshets. The pot-holes along the granite ridges in Bronx Park, New York City, as well as on the Canaan Hills—nearly one thousand feet above the Merrimac and Connecticut river-beds,—reveal the erstwhile revolving stones now motionless in their basins.

“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”—THOREAU.]

After remaining in the region of the Wash-Tubs an hour or more, I followed down the lateral moraine or wooded ridge along the stream, which became rocky in the heart of the hemlocks. Upon a broad table-like rock, I found a large mat of Walking Ferns. It appeared about four feet square, and contained the most luxuriant plants I have ever seen or expect to see. I placed several in my vasculum, and descended to the stream, hastening on toward the village. Here I met an old gray-haired man—the inn-keeper for the mill laborers. He recognized my botanizing outfit, and remarked that Mr. Eggleston had passed through the town in 1899. He directed me to the Gregor Rocks, above the village, and thus I found the path winding around the northern brow of these lime-rock cliffs.

Crossing the Pownal Centre road, I entered the pasture east of the village church, and wound up the cliffs above the limekiln quarry. Here, striking in among the cedar trees and ragged bluffs, I pulled myself up under the trees and rocks. Resting for a moment, I beheld a fern which proved to be the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake (Pellæa atropurpurea). Much elated by my discovery, I fell to wondering what the little Wall-Rue Spleenwort (Asplenium Ruta-muraria) could look like. I had studied the plates of these rare ferns, but had not known them face to face. I soon came to an enormous lime-rock boulder on the summit of Gregor Rocks, and here I found the rare ferns for which I searched. From the crevices both the tender green tufts of the Wall-Rue Spleenwort and the wiry purple stems of the Cliff-Brake grew luxuriantly, draping the fissured sides of the boulder. Climbing to the top of the boulder, I saw beyond my reach a tuft of Walking Fern. This proved to me that this plant throve on the dryest of lime-rocks in the full glare of the sun, as well as in damp sheltered places. None of these species look like the ferns that are ordinarily known, and unless one turns the leaves over and observes the sori or fruit dots, he would never guess to what family they belonged, so different are they in appearance from their brothers of the boglands and hillside pastures.

The rocks about were covered with tufts of the delicate Wall-Rue, and great tangles of the Cliff-Brake, growing from twelve to fifteen inches tall. The last year’s growth was still brown and rusty amid the fresh green fronds of this season. Hardy indeed were these ferns, growing in such a dry, exposed place.

Later in the month I made another trip to secure some ferns for photographing. It was Sunday, and the church bells were ringing at North Corners as I drove into the valley, and hitched my horse opposite the village inn. As I went my way toward the haunts of the ferns, I soon discovered that I was not making my ascent to the cliffs alone. A gray-haired woman, with basket on her arm, overtook me. She seemed to be gathering the bluebells along the ledges. We began to converse, and when we came to some ripe strawberries, we ate in a social way the fruits we found by the path. She told me she was gathering bluebells to decorate the chancel of the church, as it was Children’s Day.

On the brow of Gregor Rocks I asked my companion if the legend were true, of which Hawthorne writes, in 1838, during his stay in the valley at North Adams: “A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice in Pownal, hundreds of feet high, and, if the tale be true, being buoyed up by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.” She told me the name of the girl who had made the leap. She was a half-witted creature who, descending the cliffs at twilight with a package of wool rolls, thought to save time by throwing her burden ahead of her and leaping from the rocks. Her homespun garments caught and held her in the cedars below, until the villagers heard her screams and rescued her. The rocks are called “Weeping Rocks”—for what reason it is not quite clear, unless through some exaggeration of this story.

I collected some perfect ferns, and told my companion their names. She glowed with interest, and told me she had never been to these cliffs since she was a child, until now. She said if she had her life to live again, she would have devoted more time to exploring these rugged hills and vales. Soon our baskets were filled, and with a warm handclasp we parted.

I proceeded up Wash-Tub Brook, and secured some fresh plants of the Walking Fern in Hemlock Glen; then I returned to my horse. I was laden with rare treasures from the roadsides before I reached Mount Œta, late in the afternoon.

Many of the present names of ferns, lichens, and mosses originated with the ancients. Dioscorides knew and designated two kinds of fern. They were thought to put forth no seed in those days, since they produced no flowers—except as Dodoens in 1578 wrote: “We shall take for seede the blacke spots growing on the backside of the leaves, the which some do gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the truth, it is nothing else but trumperie and superstition.”

The Osmunda, Polypody, Oak-Fern, Hart’s-Tongue, Spleenwort, Asplenium, Venus-Hair and Maiden-Hair, as well as the delicate Ruta-Muraria—the Wall-Rue found on Gregor Rocks—were described clearly by the earliest herbalists. These records are full of errors and confusion, since the natural affinity of these species was not then known.

The Lichens were known also as “Stone-Liverworts (Hepatica), found with wrinkled, crimpled leaves on the ground or moist sweating rocks, where the sun shines seldom,” according to Dodoens. Among the list of mosses described, I discover that our Round-Leaved Sundew, the little carnivorous plant, was anciently classed as a species of moss, in close relation with the Ground and Club mosses known as Lycopodium. But the Sundew, unlike the mosses, produces a stalk with white flowers. The plant was considered strange, because the stronger shone the sun upon the round, reddish leaves, the more moist with drops of dew became the plant; for this reason it was called in Latin, Ros Solis, which became in English Sundew, in 1578.

“The stones which completed their revolutions perhaps before thoughts began to revolve in the brain of man. The periods of Hindoo and Chinese history, though they reach back to the time when the race of mortals is confounded with the race of gods, are as nothing compared with the periods which these stones have inscribed. That which commenced a rock when time was young, shall conclude a pebble in the unequal contest.”—THOREAU.]

The Wall-Rue Fern was thought to resemble the Garden Rue, but is much smaller. Rue-of-the-Wall was common in Germany and England in 1578, and was found upon old moist cathedral walls where the sun did not shine. It was originally called, in apothecary shops, Capillus-Veneris, Adiantum; and in France Saluia vita and Ruta-Muraria. There were two varieties of this fern, designated in Europe as Venus-Haire or Lumbardie Maiden-Haire, in 1578. The larger species grew commonly about well-springs, in walls in Italy. It was known as Capillus-Veneris,—named by the ancients Adiantum. This fern has hairy foot-stalks, small, blackish leaves, snipped around. This species is, no doubt, our Venus-Hair Fern, known to-day as Adiantum Capillus-Veneris.

The Walking Fern was known to Linnæus by the name of Asplenium, species of this genus being used against diseases of the spleen and liver. It was unknown to Dodoens in 1578. The Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake was originally known as a species of Pteris, a name suggested because these ferns resemble the wings of birds.

Our native species of Bluebells of New England are emigrants from Europe, and are closely allied with the Bellflowers of Europe. These flowers were likened to cathedral-bells, with a small white clapper hung in the middle. These were, according to Lyte, found in Coventry and Canterbury, England, 1578, opening after “Sunne-rising,” and closing toward “Sunne-set.” Theophrastus knew these flowers centuries before Christ, while Pliny designated them in Latin Iosione.

Our Bluebell (Campanula) derived its generic name from campana, the Italian for a bell. The species found on Gregor Rocks are known as Campanula rotundifolia, signifying round-leaved bells. The original Bluebells of Europe were known in 1578 as Campanula cœrulea, from whence the common name originated. That of the “Bluebells of New England” originated with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his poem on these flowers.

“The roses are a regal troup, And modest folks the daisies; But, Bluebells of New England, To you I give my praises.”