1907] Fernald,— Soil Preferences of Alpine Plants 155 
Had the plants of Smuggler's Notch and of Mt. Washington been 
further compared with the flora of the great alpine tableland of Mt. 
Albert in Gaspé the contrast would have been quite as marked, for 
on that broad expanse of bare summit and cafion-walls the character- 
istic plants are unlike those either of Mt. Washington or of Smuggler's 
Notch, and in their stead we find extensive areas of Adiantum pedatum, 
var. aleuticum, Festuca altaica, Salix desertorum, Arenaria arctica, 
Statice sibirica, Solidago decumbens, Artemisia borealis, and many 
other plants which are unknown elsewhere south of the St. Lawrence. 
If, however, comparison is made of the floras of Smuggler’s Notch 
and of Willoughby Cliffs, many sea-cliffs of Bic and the north coast of 
Gaspé, the mountain- and sea-cliffs of Percé, the cliffs of certain spurs 
abutting on the northwestern edge of Table-top Mountain, and various 
river-cliffs in northern Maine, New Brunswick, and the interior of 
the Gaspé Peninsula; we shall find a remarkable similarity in their 
floras. In fact, of the 29 distinctively cliff or subalpine plants of 
Smuggler’s Notch all but the local Astragalus Blakei are known 
from the sea-cliffs of Bic and the Gaspé coast, the river-cliffs of the 
Gaspé interior, or the northwestern abutments of Table-top Moun- 
tain; while on the neighboring cliffs of Willoughby only 18 of the 29 
notable Smuggler’s Notch species are found, though a few others are 
there present. Furthermore, on the more northern and ordinarily 
more exposed cliffs of the Gaspé mountains and coast many additional 
plants are associated with those of Smuggler’s Notch and of Willoughby 
Cliffs; but on none of these areas (except Table-top Mt. discussed 
below) is there a noteworthy identity with the alpine flora of Mt. 
Washington. 
When, on the other hand, we compare the characteristic alpine 
flora of Mt. Washington and the adjacent White Mountains with 
that of Mt. Katahdin or the great alpine tableland (15 miles long, by 
3 or more miles wide) of Table-top Mountain, or the coastal cliffs of 
eastern Maine, we find a striking similarity in these floras. Some of 
these areas support one or more plants not known in either of the 
others, but on these three great mountain areas the characteristic 
species are identical, while several of them occur on the coast of eastern 
1 Carex capitata, Geum Peckii, Saxifraga rivularis, and Euphrasia Williamsii on Mt. 
Washington; Carex Grahami, C. saxatilis, C. katahdinensis, and Saxifraga stellaris, var. 
comosa on Katahdin; Phegopteris alpestris, Asplenium cyclosorum, Cerastium cerastioides, 
Petasites vitifolia and P. trigonophylla on Table-top Mountain. 
