i7ft THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [May 



equalized and lower temperature resulting from the proximity to 

 the widely extended and deep waters of the lake. The higher 

 latitude does not, hy any means, alone account for these coasts 

 forming suitable stations for plants of a northern range. 



It is a circumstance not without considerable interest that in 

 the alpine and sub-alpine flora of the New England States there is 

 a remarkable paucity of peculiarly American species. With the 

 exception of Alsine Groenlandica Fenzl, Gewm radiatum Michx. 

 var. Peckii Gray, Arnica mollis Hook., Solidago thyrsoidea E. 

 Meyer, Nabalus nanus DC, N. Bootii DC, Vaccinium ccespi- 

 tosum Michx., Salix Uva-Ursi Pursh, Carer scirpoidea Michx. 

 and Calamagrostis Pickeringii Gray, all of these alpine plants 

 are likewise of European range. This circumstance will, it may 

 be thought, have considerable bearing upon the question with res- 

 pect to the antiquity of the peculiar flora of Arctic America. 

 The presence of these few species may be thought to be possibly 

 due to the migrations of birds, or to other agencies at work in ex- 

 isting or recent times, and not to causes which, operating in post- 

 pliocene ages, are believed to have given rise to the occurrence of 

 the other members of the flora. In glancing, however, over the 

 arctic plants of Newfoundland, the extreme eastern parts of Canada, 

 and the adjacent coasts of Labrador, it is also somewhat noticeable 

 how comparatively few of these high northern American forms 

 descend, even with the increased facilities afforded now for migra- 

 tion, as far southwards as these districts. In a climate relatively 

 of but little greater severity, we can accordingly conceive the 

 high range which these American arctic plants must have also 

 had in post-pliocene times, and how lew could be expected to occur 

 upon the then almost submerged mountain summits of New Eng- 

 land. 



In the number of this Journal before alluded to, reference 

 was made to an apparent anomaly in the range of Anemone 

 parviflora Michx., Potentilla tridentata Aiton, Finns Bank- 

 siana Lambert, Allium schxmoprasum Linn., Botrychium Lu- 

 uaria Swartz, and a number of other species, whose distribution 

 in Canada seems to be confined to the northern coasts of Lakes 

 Superior and Huron, and the Lower St Lawrence, with, at least 

 in some instances, a range between these limits. "Without refer- 

 ring to others whose intermediate diffusion is known, I may here 

 mention that the little northern Scrub Pine alluded to has been 

 met with by the Rev. J. K. Macmorine in a few localities in the 



