TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 22. . August, 1920. No. 260. 
FLORA OF BIRCH ISLAND IN ATTEAN POND. 
Louise H. Copurn. 
ATTEAN Ponp is one of the Moose River chain of lakes, which ex- 
tend from west to east across the northern part of Somerset County, 
Maine, and drain into the Kennebec by way of Moosehead Lake. It 
lies in Attean township, a wild-land township of upper Somerset, is in 
about latitude 45° 35’, and has an elevation at low water of 1157.5 
feet. It is an irregular and shallow lake, about six miles in longest 
dimension, is very nearly surrounded by mountains, and contains 
forty-two islands of various sizes, all of which are encircled by, not to 
say constructed out of, granite boulders. Each island appears to have 
its backbone of granite boulders, glacier borne from Mt. Sally 
and other rocky heights to the north, while the sand and gravel of 
their beaches show the same origin. Birch Island, which is the 
largest, is very irregular in outline, with many projecting points and 
deep coves, and has an area of something over twenty-five acres. 
The larger part of the body of the island is covered with a nearly 
pure stand of fir, unmixed except for the ancient white birches which 
rise at intervals, and lift their foliage entirely above the firs, thus form- 
ing a sort of second story of the forest. In this arboreal architecture 
it is evident that the second story was built before the first. The fir 
forest is replacing a former birch one. To an observer from the lake 
the island appears to be birch covered. 
In the densest parts of the fir woods there is absolutely no vegeta- 
tion underneath. In some parts, a little less dense, there is a scatter- 
ed growth of Aralia nudicaulis, and in others of Aralia and Ribes pros- 
