1920] Coburn,—Flora of Birch Island in Attean Pond 131 
not at present used for timber or pulp it is commonly cut for firewood 
for the log-haulers, as it dries out more quickly than hard wood. In — 
a recent season five hundred cords of it were cut. In this same town- . 
ship, No. 4, there is another large section of burnt-over land, which 
has been naturally seeded and is growing up thickly with young Jacks. 
Of deciduous trees on Birch Island, in addition to the ubiquitous 
paper birch, there is one group of three or four yellow birches. In 
the woods near the shore and on the shore grow poplars, both the 
large-toothed and the aspen, and red maple is abundant both on the 
shore and in open places in the woods. One aged elm maintains 
itself on a point of the island, and one large balsam poplar, sur- 
rounded by a few young ones, was found on the rocky shore. "There 
are three apple-trees, probably of accidental human planting, grow- 
ing on the cleared ground. Of the lesser trees, the mountain and 
the striped maple, the red cherry, and the mountain ashes, both 
Pyrus americana and P. sitchensis, are common in the woods. Pyrus 
sitchensis is the more common of the two and becomes often quite a 
large tree, one upon the island measuring ten inches in diameter 
breast-high, and over thirty feet in height. 'The black ash and 
the shad-bush are frequent on the shore, and the latter also in the 
woods. A few willows on the island, belonging to the species Salix 
discolor and S. rostrata, are large enough to deserve to be classed 
as lesser trees. This completes the island's silva. 
In contrast with the general monotony of the woods the flora of 
the rocky shore is everywhere abundant and varied. "The lake has 
tributary to it a large area of high precipitation, as a result of which 
the seasonal tide is six to eight feet in height, with a couple of feet 
more under occasional flood conditions. The period of high water 
lasts through the early summer, normal low water not generally being 
reached before the last of July. I have picked Rhodora in August 
from a bush low on the shore, recently out of the water, whose flowers 
and leaves were hurrying to maturity together. The tidal zone pre- 
sents a border from ten to thirty feet in width around the shore of the 
island, the greater part of it covered with granite boulders, large and 
small, and thickly planted between the rocks with water-tolerant 
shrubs and trees. One here perceives why so many of our native 
shrubs are of the water-enduring kind. Since in the natural forest 
only the swamps and the borders of the lakes and streams are 
open enough for shrub growth, they learned perforce to live with 
