98 Dr* Dawson on the Flora 



Of the more specially arctic plants which have held their 

 ground unchanged on Mount Washington, the following are some 

 of the principal. Diapensia Lapponica in beautiful deep green 

 tufts ascends quite to the summit. It occurs also in the Adir- 

 ondack Mountains, and on Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is 

 found in Labrador, and according to Hooker, extends north to 

 Whale Island in the Arctic seas ; but it is not found west of the 

 Great Fish River. It occurs also on the mountains of Lapland, 

 and is described as the hardiest plant of that bleak region. 

 Arenaria {Alsine) Groenlandica, the Greenland sandwort, adorns 

 with its clusters of white flowers every sandy crevice in the rocks 

 of the very summit of Mount Washington, and is trodden under 

 foot like grass by the hundreds of careless sight-seers that haunt 

 the peak in summer ; though I should add that not a few of 

 them carry off little tufts as a memento of the mountains, along 

 with the fragments of mica which appear to form the ordinary 

 keepsakes of unscientific visitors. It is a most frail and delicate 

 plant, seemingly altogether unsuited to the dangerous pre-emi- 

 nence which it seeks, yet it loves the bare unsheltered mountain 

 peaks, and when it occurs in the more sheltered ravines, has 

 only its stems a little longer and more slender. It occurs on the 

 Adirondack Mountains and on Katahdin, where — if I may judge 

 from specimens kindly sent to me by Mr. Goodale — it attains to 

 smaller dimensions than on Mount Washington, on the Katskills, 

 and at one place on the sea coast of Maine. I have not seen it in 

 Nova Scotia, but it ranges north to Greenland. 



Another of the truly arctic plants is the alpine azalea (Loi- 

 seleuria procumhens), a densely tufted mountain shrub, with hard 

 glossy leaves, that look as if constructed to brave extremest hard- 

 ships. It is found on the mountains of Norway, at the height of 

 3550 feet on the Scottish Hills according to Watson, and ac- 

 cording to Fuchs at the height of 7000 feet in the milder climate 

 of the Venetian Alps. In America it is found in Newfoundland, 

 in Labrador, and in the barren grounds from lat. 65^ to the ex- 

 treme arctic islands. Gray does not mention its occurrence else- 

 where in the United States than the summits of the White Moun- 

 tains. A member of the same family of the heaths, the yew- 

 leaved phyllodoce {P. taxifoUa)^ presents a still more singular dis- 

 tribution. It is found on all the higher mountains of New 

 England and New York, and occurs also on the mountains of 

 Scotland and Scandinavia, but its only known station in northern 



