Botanizing the East Branch (continued)

August 1. 

August 1, 2017

I saw at the end of this carry small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. . . . 

Here were many Canada blueberries and, on the rocks, a new Allium or garlic, with purple flowers, and the Lobelia Kalmii, both on bare rocks just below the falls. 

On the main land were Norway pines and a sandy soil, and Baeomyces roseus and Desmodium Canadense, — a new soil for this river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We were glad to embark once more, and leave some of the mosquitoes behind. We had passed the Wassataquoik without perceiving it. . . . We found that we had camped about a mile above Hunt's, which is on the east bank, and is the last house for those who ascend Ktaadn on this side. . . .I do not remember that we saw the mountain at all from the river.. . .we stopped early and dined on the east side of a small expansion of the river, just above what are probably called Whetstone Falls, about a dozen miles below Hunt's. There were pretty fresh moose-tracks by the waterside. . . . We carried round the falls just below, on the west side. The rocks were on their edges, and very sharp. The distance was about three fourths of a mile.. . .We made a second carry on the west side, around some falls about a mile below this. . . .On entering the West Branch at Nicketow it appeared much larger than the East. Polis remarked that the former was all gone and lost now, that it was all smooth water hence to Oldtown, and he threw away his pole which was cut on the Umbazookskus. . . .We camped about two miles below Nicketow, on the south side of the West Branch . . .I stirred the soup by accident with a striped maple or moose-wood stick, which I had peeled, and he remarked that its bark was an emetic.")

Small Apocynum cannabinum on the rocks . . . See July 11, 1857 ("Apocynum cannabinum, with its small white flowers and narrow sepals . . ") and note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain, and concluded that it did not grow here. A month or two ago I read again, as many times before, that its blossoms were very small, scarcely a third as large as those of the common species, and for some unaccountable reason this distinction kept recurring to me, and I regarded the size of the flowers I saw, though I did not believe that it grew here; and in a day or two my eyes fell on it, aye, in three different places, and different varieties of it.")

More of the spurred gentian. See July 31, 1857 (" . . .a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch,")