1910] Fernald,— Plants of Wineland the Good 37 
It now remains only to determine our representative of the Scandi- 
navian White Birch (Betula alba). This is obviously the Canoe Birch, 
which by some is thought to be inseparable as a species from the 
Scandinavian Betula alba, but by others is separated as a variety, or 
even as a species (B. papyrifera). The Canoe Birch is common in the 
Maritime Provinces of Canada and in the northern and upland regions 
of New England; but south of Essex County, Massachusetts, where it 
is local, it is almost unknown as a coastal species, though scattered 
colonies of it are found as far south as Long Island Sound. North- 
ward, however, it crosses the interior of Labrador and follows up the 
coast, except on exposed mountains, headlands, and the outer islands, 
to the region of Hebron in latitude 58?.! “About Hamilton Inlet, 
birch is common, and, at the head of the inlet, trees up to 10 inches in 
diameter are not uncommon." ? 
Thus it will be seen, that the three plants which have been most 
depended upon in attempts to locate Wineland the Good,— “vinber,” 
“hveiti,” and " mosurr" wood — instead of being the Grape, the In- 
dian Corn or Wild Rice, and the Maple (some of which species, by 
their known distribution, exclude from consideration? all coastal 
regions north of the Maritime Provinces) * are in reality the Mountain 
Cranberry or possibly one of the native Currants (“vinber”), the Strand 
Wheat (“hveiti”) and the Canoe Birch (mosurr). And, although the 
Canoe Birch extends very locally southward on the coast to Long 
Island Sound, the Mountain Cranberry to Essex County, Massachu- 
setts, and the Strand Wheat to the Isles of Shoals, the area of their 
greatest abundance is from the Lower St. Lawrence river northward 
along the coast of Labrador. The inevitable conclusion from these 
facts and its far-reaching significance must be obvious. 
1 See Low, Report on Explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, in Geological Survey of 
Canada, Annual Report n. s. viii, 30, 31 L (1897). 
2 Low, |. c. 32 L (1897). 
3 As an illustration of the use of the vegetation in locating Vínland, the following, 
from Professor E. N. Horsford’s “ The Landfall of Leif Erikson," p. 19 (1892), may be 
quoted: “Jn Labrador Indian corn does not ripen; it cannot, of course, grow wild. 
Why? Unripe seeds do not germinate. .... Grapes grow wild in southeastern New 
England. Grapes do not grow in Labrador. The first point, then, so far as vegetation 
is concerned, is that Labrador could not have been the Vineland. 
“The second point is, that what is now southeastern New England might have been the 
Vineland of the Northmen, so far as the forests and grapes and corn are concerned,” 
4 Though Grapes, Wild Rice, and Indian Corn do not grow so far north, several species 
of Maple extend northward to southern Newfoundland and the Gaspé Peninsula, at the 
mouth of the St. Lawrence; and one, the Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum) reaches the 
southern coast of the Labrador Peninsula. 
