1907] Fernald,— Soil Preferences of Alpine Plants 179 
Furthermore, in the Maritime Provinces of Canada in which we know 
only a single station for 4 renaria groenlandica (on rocks near Halifax), 
granite is of only occasional occurrence, in fact it is quite unknown 
on the coast between Nova Scotia and the north shore of the St. Law- 
rence, In Nova Scotia, however, there are some isolated granitic 
areas, one of the largest extending from Halifax Harbor to Margaret’s 
Bay,! the only coastal station for Arenaria groenlandica in Canada 
south of the St. Lawrence. Likewise, at the only station in Connecti- 
cut for Arenaria groenlandica, the plant is said by its discoverer to 
grow “on bleak granite rocks below the city [Middletown] " ? 
When, however, we examine the broad range of plants which in 
New England and eastern Canada are confined to strongly calcareous 
rocks, we find that they have a distribution quite different in some 
details from those just examined. "The range of Dryas Drummondii 
— on the limy rocks and gravels of the Gaspé Peninsula, on Anti- 
costi, and generally along the rivers of the Canadian Rockies — has 
been noted. Many other plants show a similar range. Now, as 
indicated on the recent geological map of western C anada, the general 
area occupied by the Canadian Rocky Mountains is called Palaeozoic, 
a general classification to cover much of the area indicated on a pre- 
vious map merely as "limestone"; and in his Journal of a Boat 
Voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea, Sir John Richard- 
son mentions Dryas Drummondii, Hedysarum boreale, Elaeagnus 
argentea, Shepherdia canadensis, and several other plants of our 
caleareous cliffs and gravels as abounding on the limestones of the 
Mackenzie River? Other plants of our limestone mountains and 
cliffs occur at somewhat scattered stations in Newfoundland, Labra- 
dor, and Arctic America; and a few of the plants, which south of the 
St. Lawrence are confined to the magnesian soils of Mt. Albert, are 
also known at isolated points from Newfoundland northward. 
In order to test, so far as it is possible to do so without more accurate 
1 See Geological map of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, by 
J. W. Dawson, in Acadian Geology (1878). 
2 H. L. Osborn in letter to Asa Gray, May 17, 1878. 
3 “ The dogwood, silvery opulaster (Elaeagnus argentea), Shepherdia, and Amelanchier 
grow on banks that in Europe would be covered with gorse and broom, and the southern 
Salix candida is replaced by the more luxuriant and much handsomer Salix speciosa, 
which is the prince of the willow family. The Hedysarum Mackenzii and boreale flower 
freely among the boulders that cover the clayey beaches; while the showy yellow 
flowers and handsome foliage of the Dryas Drummondii cover the limestone debris."— 
Richardson, Arct. Searching Exped. 123 (1852). 
