Vol. X, pp. 131-132 November 14, 1896 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 





RIBES ERYTHROCARPUM, A NEW CURRANT FROM 

 THE VICINITY OF CRATER LAKE, OREGON. 



BY FREDERICK V. COVILLE. 



Crater Lake is a remarkable body of tbe purest water, nearly 

 circular in form, about ten kilometers (6 miles) in diameter and 

 600 meters (2,000 feet) in depth, without a visible outlet, occupy- 

 ing the bowl of an extinct volcano in the southern ])art of the 

 Cascade Mountains of Oregon, situated about latitude 43° and 

 longitude 122°. The surface of the w'ater has an altitude of 

 1,902 meters (6,239 feet) and the surrounding cliffs rise 300 to 

 450 meters (1,000 to 1,500 feet) higher, some of the neighboring 

 peaks reaching 2,400 and 2,700 meters (8,000 and 9,000 feet). 

 The mountain slopes are densely forested, except where the trees 

 have been burned off by sheep herders, and no settlements occur 

 nearer than the plains below. It was the writer's good fortune 

 to visit the place in August of the present year, at the time of 

 the excursion of the Mazamas to that point. The Mazamas are 

 an organization of mountain climbers, which originated in Port- 

 land, Oregon, and are doing a great deal to popularize the natural 

 sciences, to make known the wonderful scenery of the Northwest 

 coast, and especially to create and maintain a public sentiment 

 toward the preservation of the magnificent forests of that region. 



Nothing seems to have been published on the botany of this 

 part of the Cascades, and indeed no botanist appears heretofore 

 to have made a collection of the plants of the Crater Lake region. 

 The collection made 1>y the writer and Mr. John B. Leiberg from 

 August loth to 20th of the present 3'ear is therefore of unusual 



23-Bior,. Soc. Wash., Voi,. X, 1896 (131) 



