INHABITANTS OF NEW ENGLAND 149 



It may here be remarked that botanists have not 

 yet distinguished two zones of life above the trees 

 in our White Mountains, but only between those 

 pjants that are found exclusively in that region or 

 in the high north, and those which, while found 

 there in greatest abundance, are also found decid- 

 edly out of it. But my own casual observation of 

 the comparative abundance of certain flowers over 

 the districts I have distinguished as upper alpine 

 and lower alpine leads me to believe that a careful 

 survey of the field would bring one to the same 

 conclusion as I have drawn in the case of the but- 

 terflies. Moreover, Agassiz noted many years ago 

 certain distinctions, as the following extract from 

 his '' Lake Superior " shows : — 



" Above this level the mountain is naked, and many 

 fine plants make their appearance which remind us of 

 the flora of Greenland, and many of which grow on the 

 northern shores of Lake Superior, such as Arenaria 

 groenlandica, Vaccinium caespitosum, uHginosum, etc. 

 The summit of the mountain, at the height of six 

 thousand two hundred and eighty feet, produces several 

 plants which have no representatives south of Labrador. 

 Such are Andromeda [Cassiope] hypnoides, Saxifraga riV- 

 ularis, Rhododendron lapponicum, Diapensia lapponica." 



The phenogamous vegetation of the whole dis- 



