Vegetation of Northern Cape Breton. ' 447 



It will be seen from the above list that nearly half the vascular 

 species here are ericaceous shrubs or semi-shrubs, and these 

 also comprise the greater bulk of the vascular plant cover. 

 Herbaceous plants are subordinate in importance to shrubs, 

 although a few forms, such as Scirpus, Eriophorum and Rubus, 

 commonly occupy quite a prominent position. The various seed 

 plants form a thin upper story of vegetation, but for the most 

 part they rise less than a foot above the mossy substratum and 

 quite commonly their shoots are buried nearly to the tip by the 

 sphagnums. The trees are scattered and dwarfed : specimens of 

 tamarack scarcely a foot high and an inch in trunk diameter may 

 show more than fifty annual rings. ^^ 



"In this connection certain further observations by Ganong ('98, p. 

 142), equally applicable to Cape Breton bogs, are of sufficient interest 

 and suggestiveness to warrant quoting at length. "Most of the ericaceous 

 plants on the bog have stems of great length running just beneath the 

 surface, which, as Warming points out, is characteristic of bog plants. 

 In one, Rubus Chamaetnorus, I followed a stem over seventeen feet 

 without finding an end, and in Ledum and Cassandra for lesser, though 

 considerable distances, also without finding the ends. These stems run 

 nearly horizontally, branch frequently, and send out roots at intervals. 

 The same stem varies in thickness in different parts ; is now thicker, 

 now thinner, showing a more active growth at some times than at others. 

 It is clear, also, that these stems are now alive only at their tips, the 

 under-moss parts being preserved from decay by their position. When 

 one traces what appears to be a clump of young plants of Ledum lati- 

 folium, he often finds that they are all branches of one plant connected 

 beneath the surface, and he cannot find the end of any one of them ; 

 and this is true also of other species. The question now arises, when 

 and how have such plants started, and how do they come to an end? 

 Since the different branches can grow on continuously, and, making their 

 own roots, become independent of one another and of the original plant, 

 and can grow upwards continuously with the growth of the moss, there 

 seems to be no logical limit to their growth, and no cause for death, 

 such as brings most other woody perennials to their end in other situa- 

 tions. Some of them may then be as old as the bog itself, and thus 

 would be amongst the longest lived of phanerogamic vegetation. Yet 

 a comparison between their age and that of a tree, for example, would 

 not be a fair one; physiologically, their longevity should be compared 

 rather with that of those lower organisms, which grow by continuous 

 fission. This continuous life of the bog plants, however, is pure theory; 

 its demonstration is attended with great practical difficulties. To some 

 extent this mode of growth is found also in the trees. In the spruces 

 . . . one may observe how the moss is rising and burying them. As it 



