Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 9. September, 1907. No. 105. 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY.— NEW SERIES, NO. XXXV. 
THE SOIL PREFERENCES OF CERTAIN ALPINE AND 
SUBALPINE PLANTS. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE floras of alpine and subalpine districts are especially attractive 
to the field-botanist. The flowers of such regions are as a rule more 
showy in proportion to the size of the plants than in the lowland forms; 
while on mountain summits and slopes are found many species quite 
unknown in the habitable districts. And, owing to the steepness and 
exposure of the slopes, the plants of alpine and subalpine situations 
are ordinarily found in picturesque and even inaccessible localities :— 
on the faces of cliffs, in rock-crevices, or on talus-slopes formed from 
the overhanging cliffs. In this characteristic, of growing primarily on 
soils derived from the rock in place, our alpine plants are strongly 
contrasted with the most familiar vegetation of the lower and more 
habitable regions of New England, New York, and eastern Canada, 
a vegetation which is found on more or less mixed or transported 
soils — in our region chiefly of alluvial or glacial origin. 
Aside from the somewhat unique habitat of many plants of high 
mountains and cliffs and their interest as species unknown or rarely 
seen in the lowland, these alpine plants present to the student of geo- 
graphic botany a problem of peculiar fascination. In most cases their 
known distribution is seemingly very erratic. The typical plants 
of these regions, instead of occurring over broad and continuous areas 
of eastern Canada and the United States, are found in only a few 
very isolated situations; and not until they reach the high-northern 
districts of polar America or other boreal regions do they occur exten- 
sively or in closely contiguous large areas. Empetrum nigrum, for 
instance, the Crow-berry or Curlew-berry, is a characteristic trailing 
