II.—BOTANICAL REPORT. 
By FREDERICK VERNON COVILLE. 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 
The excellent collection of plants brought by Mr. Funston from the 
vicinity of Yakutat Bay, Alaska, in 1892, gives us our first compre- 
hensive knowledge of the flora of that locality. The specimens col- 
lected undoubtedly represent nearly all the species of vascular plants 
that occur in the area traversed, but circumstances prevented, for the 
most part, the collection of the cellular cryptogams. 
Yakutat Bay is an interesting point in the classification of the zonal 
plant areas of the Pacific Coast, for at this place the dense coastal 
forest characteristic of the coast mountains of British Columbia and 
southern Alaska is broken by the occurrence of a series of glaciers 
which here come down to the very beach, counteracting the influence of 
the warm ocean currents and driving the timber line backward into the 
sea. Westward from Yakutat Bay such breaks are frequent as far as 
Cooks Inlet and the eastern part of Kadiak Island.' West of these 
points the coniferous timber of the coast region ceases.” 
On the west side of Yakutat Bay the Malaspina Glacier prevents 
the growth of trees except at a few sheltered points. The forest on the 
east side of Yakutat Bay, from Ocean Cape to Mount Tebenkof, a 
distance of about 30 kilometers, is described by Mr. Funston as dense 
and impenetrable and extending inland for an unknown distance. Of 
such a nature is the coastal forest which extends almost uninterrupt- 
edly to Sitka and still farther south. 
The transition ground of such a change from forest to perpetual 
snow and ice is full of interest. One stretch of it lies on the eastern 
shore of Yakutat Bay, from Mount Tebenkof to the point which marks 
the entrance of Disenchantment Bay, on the east. Following up the 
eastern shore of Yakutat Bay over the lowlands, the forest meets Mount 
Tebenkof, the southernmost peak of this section of the St. Elias range, 
and ascends it to an altitude, on its western slope, of 2,200 feet. Irom 
this point the timber line dips abruptly downward along the coastward 
1“The eastern part of Kadiak Island and those lying to the northeast of it are 
abundantly supplied with spruce and other trees.” Contributions to the Natural 
History of Alaska, 1886, p.16; by L. M. Turner. Arctic Series of Publications, No. 
II, Signal Service, U. 8. Army. 
2See map in Alaska Coast Pilot, 1879, Appendix I, Meteorology and Bibliography ; 
by W. H. Dall. 
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