II.— BOTANICAL REPORT. 



By FitEDERicK Vernon Coville. 

 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The excelleut collection of plants brought by Mr. Funston from the 

 vicinity of Yakutat Bay, Alaska, in 1892, gives us our first compre- 

 hensive knowledge of the flora of that locality. The specimens col- 

 lected undoubtedly represent nearly all the species of vascular plants 

 that occur in the area traversed, but circumstances prevented, for the 

 most part, the collection of the cellular cryptogams. 



Yakutat Bay is an interesting point in the classification of the zonal 

 plant areas of the Pacific Coast, for at this place the dense coastal 

 forest characteristic of the coast mountains of British Columbia and 

 southern Alaska is broken by the occurrence of a series of glaciers 

 which here come down to the very beach, counteracting the influence of 

 the warm ocean currents and driving the timber line backward into the 

 sea. Westward from Yakutat Bay such breaks are frequent as far as 

 Cooks Inlet and the eastern i)art of Kadiak Island.^ West of these 

 points the coniferous timber of the coast region ceases.- 



On the west side of Yakutat Bay the Malaspina Glacier prevents 

 the growth of trees except at a few sheltered points. The forest on the 

 east side of Yakutat Bay, from Ocean Cape to Mount Tebenkof, a 

 distance of about 30 kilometers, is described by Mr. Funston as dense 

 and impenetrable and extending inland for an unknown distance. Of 

 such a nature is the coastal forest which extends almost uninterrupt- 

 edly to Sitka and still farther south. 



The transition ground of such a change from forest to perpetual 

 snow and ice is full of interest. One stretch of it lies on the eastern 

 shore of Yakutat Bay, from Mount Tebenkof to the point which marks 

 the entrance of Disenchantment Bay, on the east. Following up the 

 eastern shore of Yakutat Bay over the lowlands, the forest meets Mount 

 Tebenkof, the southernmost i)eak of this section of the St. Elias range, 

 and ascends it to an altitude, on its western slope, of 2,200 feet. From 

 this point the timber line dips abruptly downward along the coastward 



'"The eastern part of Kadiak Island and those lying to the northeast of it are 

 abundantly supplied with sprurse and other trees." Contributions to the Natural 

 History of Alaska, 1886, p. 16; by L. M. Turner. Arctic Series of Publications, No. 

 II, Signal Service, U. S. Army. 



2 See map in Alaska Coast Pilot, 1879, Appendix I, Meteorology and L5ibIiography; 

 by W. H. Call. 

 334 



