NATURE NOTES FROM ACADIA

RHODORA

When May is two-thirds gone, the splendor of Rhodora (Rhodora canadensis) graces many a thicket and swamp in Acadia National Park. It is then that the Great Meadow becomes blanketed with the attractive rose-purple of this splendid shrub - an impressive spectacle which is seen to best advantage from various points along the Emery-Schiff Trail on Flying Squadron Mountain. On the summit of Cadillac Mountain, Rhodora's height of bloom is approximately one week later than the period of its height of bloom in the Great Meadow.

Like other members of the Rhododendron group, Rhodora thrives best where the acidity is high, and Mr. Edgar T. Wherry, in his book on the "Wild Flowers of Mount Desert Island, Maine" (1928) mentions the fact that this shrub flowers most luxuriantly in that portion of the Great Meadow where the soil is highly acid. Two to three feet is the usual height of this shrub, of which Emerson wrote

"Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."

- Ranger-Naturalist