1921] Fernald ,— Expedition to Nova Scotia 169 



complexity or else some subtle qualities in the habitats of these 

 plants. 



And what of the much overworked life-zones based alone upon 

 temperature? In a region where the Louisianian 1 Lycopodium in- 

 undahim, var. Bigelovii (L. adpressum) and the Louisianian and 

 Carolinian Utricvlaria subulaia (fig. 4) creep among the bases of 

 Carex Goodenowii (Greenland and arctic America, south to Nova 

 Scotia and eastern Massachusetts) or of J uncus filiform in (Greenland 

 to Massachusetts and the mountains of Pennsylvania); where the 

 Louisianian and Carolinian Eleocharis tuberculosa (fig. 14) vies with 

 Carer oligosperma (Labrador to Great Bear Lake, ete.) for the pos- 

 session of the edge of a savannah; where the dominant undergrowth 

 in the spruce, fir, and larch swamps includes the Louisianian and 

 Carolinian Inkberry (fig. 3), and such a distinctly southern plant as 

 Solidago Elliottii; where the Inkberry makes tall thickets with Ledum 

 groenlaudivum or pushes its branches through the carpet of arctic 

 Crowberry, Empetrum nigrum (fig. 2), or the arctic Cloudberry 

 or Bakeapple (Rubus Chamarmorus) ; — in a region where these com- 

 minglings of Arctic or Hudsonian with Louisianian or Carolinian 

 species ire met at every turn, one is certainly perplexed to make 

 Merriam's zones fit the facts. My friends in the more arid and ele- 

 vated regions of the West seem to find them of practical value, and 

 in our ( wn upland country they are useful concepts if their use is 

 constantly tempered by that rarest of virtues, sound judgment; but 

 in our humid and lowland regions of the Northeast they are so tangled 

 that it is doubtful whether a commensurate return can he gained 

 from the effort to untangle them. Incidentally, Merriam makes the 

 moose an indicator of the Hudsonian. How lost this great animal 

 must feci in Yarmouth County as it breaks its way through the 

 thickets of Inkberry and tangles of Green Brier to the lake-margins, 

 there to browse on the Louisianian and Carolinian Brasenia, 

 Nympho'dcs or Solidago tenuifolia! 



I have laid great emphasis upon the seemingly unfair proportion 

 of fog and "Scotch mist" in southwestern Nova Scotia, although 

 we were constantly assured that we were having "beginner's luck" 

 and seeing an abnormal summer. I have also indicated the very 



"The warmer "zones" to which the southern species are accredited are those indi- 

 cated for hem in Molir's Plant Life of Alabama. 



