302 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



grows in perfection, in the most exposed situations, round a 

 boulder or granite rock, over whose face its branches may 

 spread, and where it can have at one time both moisture and 

 the reflected heat of the sun's rays. It is found at Danvers, in 

 Massachusetts, in Maine, and the higher mountains of New 

 England, where its fruit is reported by Dr. Asa Gray to be 

 barely edible, bitter, and mealy. In the parallel of Lake 

 Superior it spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific (being 

 absent, however, on the prairies). In a higher latitude it 

 crosses the continent also from Churchill Fort to Sitka and 

 Kotzebue Sound, and it extends in the middle districts to the 

 Arctic Sea in latitude 71°. In Sitka its leaves are said to be 

 small. In Rupert's Land they vary in size, according as the 

 plant is exposed or under shade. V. ovatum is common in 

 Oregon and rocky places of the west coast northwards to the 

 49th parallel. V. oxycoccus, dotted cranberry, is, like the pre- 

 ceding, common to the New and Old World. It grows in peat 

 bogs from New England and Wisconsin, northwards to the arctic 

 circle, and from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Rocky 

 Mountains, between 52° and 57° north lat. ; in Sitka on the 

 latter parallel, and in Kotzebue Sound. V. macrocarpum, 

 American cranberry, is common in the peat bogs of the 

 Northern States, and has its limit in the Saskatchewan basin. 

 It crosses the continent from Newfoundland to Oregon ; and the 

 natives near the mouth of the Columbia eat its fruit, when 

 boiled, under the name of Su-labich. Chiogenes hispidula, 

 creeping snowberry, is common in the Northern States, where it 

 grows under evergreens in turfy places. It extends across the 

 continent from Newfoundland to the sources of the Columbia, 

 and northwards along the Rocky Mountains to the 55th 

 parallel. 



EriceyE. — Gaultheria procumbens, creeping winter-green 

 tea-berry, chequer-berry, partridge-berry, or box-berry. This 

 fragrant creeping shrub is a great ornament of the woods north 

 of Lake Superior. It inhabits moist woods in the Northern 

 States, grows at Pictou and on Lakes Huron and Superior, and 

 was traced by us northwards to the Lake of the Woods, or near 



