L.|L>'v 



BOTANIC 

 GARDE 



THE fl/l^ERICP BOTPIST. 



Vol. VI. BINGHAMTON, N. Y., MARCH, 1904. No. 3. 



AN ODD DISTRIBUTION OF COMMON PLANTS. 



BY DR. WILLIAAI WHITMAN BAILEY. 



ID EADERS of books of travel are no longer surprised to 

 *-^ note the wide distribution of familiar alpine plants. 

 The causes have been long ago discussed by Gray, Hooker 

 and others. We expect to see Loiseluria procumhens, 

 Rhododendron Lapponicam, Diapensia Lapponica, Silene 

 acaulis and many others on high mountains all over the 

 Northern Hemisphere. When, after the retreat of the ice 

 toward the Pole, the climate in the lowlands became too 

 warm for them, some were forced up the mountain sides 

 to congenial habitats, while others maj^be simply recog- 

 nized that they were all right and stayed where they were. 

 At any rate, on the Scotch Alps, on the Swiss Mountains, 

 the Pyrenees and the Himalayas, we find some of our 

 own New England alpines rej)eated. 



Anyone interested in their peculiar distribution should 

 consult Dr. Asa Gray's "Sequoia" in "Darwiniana," page 

 205, "Forest Archaeology" in same volume, and Hooker's 

 masterly "Introduction to the Flora of Tasmania." In 

 an article published years ago. Dr. Gray also gives (Amer- 

 ican Academy of Arts and Sciences Report) a discussion 

 and list of our alpines, and Schimper, in his Classical Plant 

 Geograph}^, dwells more or less upon such matters. 



I have lately, during convalescence, been indulging in 

 a Himalayan debauch, reading all books I could find that 

 were something more than politics. The stupendous 

 peaks, the highest of which, of those certainly known, is 

 over 29,000 feet, first became familiar to me ^^ears ago 

 through Sir Joseph Hooker's "Himalaya Journals," pub- 

 lished in 1855. I am cruel enough to excite the envy of my 

 confreres, by saying I paid only two shillings for my copy ! 



