SECTION IV, 1902 .[ 125 ] Trans. R. S. C. 
V.— Some Features of the Flora of Northern New Brunswick. 
BAC UE EDS: 
(Read May 27, 1902.) 
The rivers of Northern New Brunswick present a most inviting 
field for the botanist as they do for the angler; and if the former has 
something of the sportsman in his nature—and what botanist has not 
—] know of no place more congenial for the woodsman and canoeist 
than the Restigouche, the Nepisiguit and the Tobique. The very 
names are suggestive of a woodsman’s paradise. The weary 
dweller in far off cities sniffs the breath of the forest and 
the exciting chase of the antlered moose and caribou or the 
struggles with gamy salmon and trout; the forester with admiring 
eye can note the girth and height of lordly pines and spruces, 
or giant birches and maples, and at night be gently lulled to refresh- 
ing slumber by the sough of the wind through their tops as he 
stretches contentedly beneath their broad canopy; the canoeman, 
gliding over the swift pebbly stretches of the Restigouche, or through 
the rock strewn rapids of the Nepisiguit, or among the many devious 
windings of the Tobique and Serpentine, can say exultingly: “ Were 
there ever woodland rivers like these!” The botanist, while he hails 
the discovery of rare plants in these little explored regions, will rejoice 
more in the luxuriance and the harmonizing influences of vegetation 
to be found in the deep gorges, in the river valleys, in the mazes of 
primeval forests, or in the Arctic forms that cling to the rocks of wind- 
swept mountain tops. 
It has been my good fortune in recent years with a congenial com- 
panion to explore these rivers to their sources, to spend days lazily 
paddling with the current or alternately climbing up the foaming 
waves of rapids, or making weary portages around cataracts or through 
intervening forests; to sleep contentedly at night in mosquito proof 
tents ; — these and many other experiences, delightful and otherwise, 
are the lot of those who explore the forests and inland waters of 
Canada. 
Before drawing your attention to the flora of the Restigouche 
river, I may refer to some of the characteristic features of that valley 
which forms the northern boundary of New Brunswick. The high 
plateau country which extends from the St. John river to the Bay de 
Chaleur is underlaid with calcareous slates formed under the sea in 
past ages. Through these yielding slates the Restigouche has cut its 
