Vegetation of Northern Cape Breton. 



409 



rings; and about the same number was counted in a cross 

 section of the trunk of a balsam fir, scarcely three feet high, 

 but with a trunk seven inches in diameter. Knee-high spruces 

 more than fifty years old are common in exposed situations, one 

 of those in the foreground of Fig. 51, scarcely a foot in height, 

 having more than a hundred annual rings. 



The forest scrub association-type. — From a distance, many of 

 the low hills in the barrens appear to be well wooded, but closer 



Figure 56. — Gnarled tamaracks, aged about 150 years, at summit of low 

 hill shown in Fig. 51; barrens in mountains west of Ingonish. 



inspection commonly reveals a most remarkable type of associa- 

 tion. Because of the size of the trees, many of which may be 

 as much as twenty feet high, it should be classed as forest; yet 

 it is an abortive attempt at forest development rather than true 

 forest. Three trees predominate: the balsam fir, the black 

 spruce, and the tamarack, and one and all are battered and 

 weather-beaten, betraying unmistakably the severity of the 

 atmospheric forces to which they have been subjected. In this 

 connection the dissimilar behavior of the three constituent trees 

 under these adverse conditions is of much interest. 



