1911] Fernald,— Expedition to Newfoundland 115 
western Newfoundland, and apparently elsewhere on the island, as 
soon as one leaves the beaten path he is either in a saturated bog or 
on hard and ragged ridges. Our first few days were consequently 
occupied in gaining a general knowledge of the region and in pick- 
ing out spots for more thorough exploration. Immediately around 
Birchy Cove the woods have been terribly destroyed by forest 
fire, exposing baked ledges over thousands of acres, and of course 
in such soilless spots the botanizing was practically spoiled. Simi- 
larly, along the roadsides the sheep had browsed so closely that 
there was little hope there, but we soon discovered unspoiled slopes 
and mossy woodland glades which exhibited a flora suggesting that 
of Aroostook County, Maine, or Bonaventure and Gaspé Counties, 
Quebec, with the abundance of Selaginella selaginoides, Habenaria 
dilatata and hyperborea, Cypripedium hirsutum, Carex gynocrates, 
vaginata, and castanea, Tofieldia glutinosa, Geum macrophyllum, 
Osmorhiza obtusa, Pinguicula vulgaris, and Galium labradoricum; 
but for some reason, after all, these rich mossy woods of the Silurian 
hills were quite unlike those of the Silurian region of northern Maine 
and adjacent Canada, and after many excursions we found out why. 
There is no Arbor Vitae (Thuja occidentalis) in Newfoundland and 
consequently there are no Arbor Vitae swamps such as we find so 
generally in our northern calcareous regions; and as the summer 
passed we were more and more impressed with this singular desidera- 
tum, for the absence of Arbor Vitae seems to deprive the island of many 
of the plants we find so abundantly in its shade: in Newfoundland we 
watched in vain for Equisetum pratense, Orchis rotundifolia, Calypso 
bulbosa, Corallorhiza striata, Pyrola asarifolia, Lonicera involucrata, 
Valeriana uliginosa, and Senecio discoideus, which on the Gaspé Penin- 
sula are so generally found in the humus of the Arbor Vitae swamps. 
But we were not looking simply for familiar plants; and, although 
the absence of many which we confidently expected was a surprise 
and opened our eyes and minds to a problem not previously consid- 
ered, there were plenty of good things to be collected. Many springy 
places and brook-beds were filled with a dense tangle of a sprawling 
plant with white clammy pubescence and brilliant yellow flowers, 
Mimulus moschatus, much commoner in the Rocky Mountain region 
than in the East. The thickets and open woods had tall clumps of a 
Scrophularia strange to us of New England — true S. nodosa L., 
apparently identical with the plant of Europe. In the woods also 
