396 Botanical Society of Canada. 



der command of Captain Palliser. Dr. Hector is chiefly known 

 as an able geologist, and the results of his observations have been, 

 in part, published in the English scientific journals. But he is also 

 sufficiently known as a botanist, and Vt^as chosen a corresponding 

 member of the Botanical Society of Canada at one of its early 

 meetings. On the 13th ultimo, he read to the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh an interesting account of the general features of 

 vegetation in the central part of British America. 



Dr. Hector's remarks were of course founded on the botanical 

 results of the late Government expedition. It was accompanied 

 by Mons. Bourgeau as botanist, and the collection made, as named 

 and distributed from Kew, consists of 819 species of flowering 

 plants and ferns, which is nearly one-half the total flora of British 

 North America. An extensive collection of seeds and veo-etable 

 products were also obtained by M. Bourgeau, and from the for- 

 mer many interesting and beautiful plants have already been 

 raised for the first time in this country at the Royal Botanic Gar- 

 dens at Kew. The country from which the collection was made 

 extended from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, and may 

 be divided into four areas, each characterized by its peculiar ve- 

 getation. From Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg is a low moun- 

 tainous region, covered by an extension westward of the character- 

 istic forest vegetation of Canada. This does not extend far beyond 

 the Red River settlement, however, near which place the oaks 

 true sugar maples, cedar, ash and plane trees cease to be met with, 

 only a few of the ash-leaved maple (Negundo) and the " bastard 

 elm " straggling west in the river courses to the Saskatchewan ; 

 but as far as the forest is concerned for the whole distance from 

 Lake Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, the " subarctic province," 

 in which the only trees are spruce, scrubby pines, with balsam 

 and aspen poplars and birch, bounds the northern limit of the 

 Central Continental arid tract, which is characterized by the cac- 

 tus and artemisia. Between the northern zone, which is occupied 

 by extensive morasses and sombre forests of worthless timber, and 

 the arid plains where the tough clay soil being without any vege- 

 table mould to protect it bakes under the heat of the sun in early 

 early spring, so that it only serves to support a sparse growth of 

 wiry grasses and carices, there exists, however, a valuable belt of 

 land from which the timber has been slowly cleared by successive 

 fires. This has arisen from the " Edge of the Woods," the favor- 

 ite camping-grounds of the Indian Tribes who live by the chase 



