The Canadian Field-Natura 



VOL. XXXVI. 



OTTAWA. ONT., FEBRUARY. 1922. 



No. 2 



SOME NOTES OF THE GROWTH OF ARBUTUS MENZIESII pursh 



By C. C Pemberton 



J^.i.^fl '"^ ""^^\^*- ^iJi 







vir" i 



Fig. 1. PIONEER TYPE. Arbutus Menziessii, Pursh 



This arbutus is a good example of the open grown tree of the natural park-lands of the 

 southern end of Vancouver Island. The limbs stretching forth all around the stem denote 

 : hat the tree in early life had plenty of room. The second growth Douglas Fir is evidently of 

 recent origin. Locality, Rocky Point, Metchosin, Vancouver Island, B.C. 



PIONEER TYPES. 



The arbutus is a 

 tree the habits and 

 characteristics of 



which are of absorb- 

 ing interest to the 

 nature student. Its 

 occurrence and dis- 

 tribution in these lati- 

 tudes is fittingly des- 

 cribed by John Muir 

 ("Steep Trails," 

 Houghton Mifflin Co., 

 Boston and New York, 

 1918, p. 235) as 

 "standing there like 

 some lost or runaway 

 native of the tropics, 

 naked and painted, 

 beside the dark mossy 

 ocean of northland 

 conifers." 



On the southern end 

 of Vancouver Island, 

 in the vicinity of 

 Victoria and on many 

 of the adjacent islands 

 of the Straits of Juan 

 de Fuca and the Gulf 

 of Georgia, the pion- 

 eer type of arbutus 

 grew as large single 

 trees, scattered on the 

 plains, on the margins 

 of the forest and on 

 the sparsely wooded 

 crests of hills and 

 rocky elevations. The 

 forms of these arbutus 

 denote that they have 

 grown in the open 

 and were not at any 

 time in early life 

 crowded by other 

 trees. A good ex- 

 ample of the type is 



