i6 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Siberian Vegetation. — Baron Nordenskjold in his "Voyage 

 of the Vega," gives a sketch of a journey up the Yennissi River, in 

 which occurs the following account of the vegetation : "As is the 

 case with all the other Siberian rivers running from south to north, the 

 western strand of the Yenisej, wherever it is formed of loose, earthy 

 layers, is also quite low and often marshy, while on the other hand the 

 eastern strand consists of a steep bank, ten or twenty metres high, 

 which north of the limit of trees is distributed in a very remarka- 

 ble way into pyramidal pointed mounds. Numerous shells of Crus- 

 tacea found here, belonging to species which still live in the Polar Sea, 

 show that at least the upper earthy layer of the tundra was deposited 

 in a sea resembling that which now washes the north coast of Siberia." 



"On the slopes of the steep tundra bank and in several of the 

 tundra valleys there is an exceedingly rich vegetation, which already, 

 only ioo kilometres south of Yefremo-Kamen, form actual thickets 

 of flowering plants, while the tundra itself is overgrown with an ex- 

 ceedingly scanty carpet, consisting more of mosses than of grasses. 

 Salices of little height go as far north as Port Dickson (73 30' N. L.); 

 the dwarf birch (Betiila nana, L.) is met with, though only as a bush 

 creeping along the ground, at Cape Schaitanskoj (72 8' N. L.); and 

 here in 1875, on tne ice-mixed soil of the tundra, we gather ripe 

 cloudberries. Very luxuriant alders (Alnaster fruticosus, Ledeb) occur 

 already at Mesenkin (71 28' N. L.), and the Briochov Islands (70 

 to 71 N. L.) are in several places covered with rich and luxuriant 

 thickets of bushes. But the limic of trees proper is considered to be- 

 gin first at the great bend which the river makes in 6g° 40' N. L , a 

 little north of Dudino. Here the hills are covered with a sort of 

 wood consisting of halt-withered, grey, moss grown larches (Larix 

 Sibirica), which seldom reach a height of more than seven to ten me- 

 tres, and which much less deserve the name of trees than the luxur- 

 iant alder bushes which grow nearly 2° farther north. But some few 

 miles south of this place, and still far north of the Arctic Circle, the 

 pine forest becomes tall. Here begins a veritable forest; the greatest 

 the •■•• orld has to show, extending with little interruption from the 

 Ural to the neighborhood of the Sea of Ochotsk, and from the fifty- 

 eighth or fifty-ninth degree of latitude to far north of the Arctic Circle, 

 that is to say, about one thousand kilometres from north to south, and 

 perhaps four times as much from east to west. It is a primeval forest 

 of enormous extent, nearly untouched bv the axe of the cultivator, 

 but at many places devastated by extensive forest fires." 



"On the high eastern bank of the Yenisej the forest begins im- 

 mediately at the river bank. It consists principally of pines; the 

 Cembra pine [P. Cembra L.], valued tor its seeds; enormous larches ; 

 the nearly awl-formed Siberian pine [P. Sibirica, Ledeb.]; the fir [P. 

 obovata, Turcz.]; and scattered trees of the common pine [P. sylves- 

 tris, L.]. Most of these already north of the Arctic Circle reach a 

 colossal size, but in such a case are often here, far from all forestry, 

 grey and half-dried up with age. Between the trees the ground is so 

 covered with fallen branches and stems, only some of which are fresh, 



