BOTANICAL EVALUATION OF THE GOAT ISLAND COMPLEX, NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK
P. M. Eckel
Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Pkwy
Buffalo, NY 14211 U.S.A.
www.buffalomuseumofscience.org

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2b. Flats on the North Side
There were and are several areas of limestone flats here (as noted on Kindle & Taylor's geologic map, 1913), which have a geologic history similar to the flats at Terrapin and Prospect Points, the shoreline on the Canadian side and all the islands in either channel prior to 1913. It was to a flats area on the north side of Goat Island to which George Clinton referred on June 8, 1863: "the little flat above the bridge ... collected two" specimens of sedge (Carex), and Kentucky Blue-grass (Poa pratensis). On August 22, 1864, Clinton found "on the American side of the Island, by the river, & above the Bridge found ... Carex eburnea." On June 1, 1865, Clinton went "up the American side, to the rocky flat by the River. Took, from a stump, a small lead colored fungus in the gills, & a larger one, perhaps the same and one or two mosses collected before." On July 23, 1865, on the "American side" of Goat Island, above the Bridge, he found the weedy Deptford Pink (Dianthus armeria) "abundant & nearly accessible."

In the Evershed map drawn in 1883 a dolomite flat was drawn on Goat Island beneath the "Bath Island Bridge" from what we call Green Island today, to Goat Island. Kindle and Taylor (1913) also drew a flats area, or area of low ground on the river's edge, corresponding geologically to the low ground on the Three Sisters and adjacent southeast margin of Goat Island, Terrapin Point, the islands in the American channel and the shoreline on the mainland leading to Prospect Point.

Water seeps along bedrock shelves in the cove area upriver from the present stone pedestrian bridge, in the north section at the river's edge. Moss and liverwort communities grow here, including the unusual moss Fissidens grandifrons that nineteenth century botanists were happy to find growing in these continuously wet horizontal fissures. Downriver, above Luna Island, another small limestone ledge occurs with a rush-sedge community of plants containing, among other plants, a species of Horehound or Bugleweed (Lycopus sp.), some grasses, one rooted (?) specimen of Eel-grass (Valisneria americana) in a pocket of quiet water, a specimen of Bulrush (Scirpus sp.) and a population of Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus). These communities are restricted to such habitats on Goat Island and are an important source of the diversity of species in the Goat Island complex.

Note also that several of the lichens reported above for the "north slope" were collected on these bedrock flats.