36 



grows, but the species is a very rare one, and the seeker may 

 cHmb many a cliff and never find one specimen. Several ferns 

 are at home in these dark spots, notably Flix hiilbifera, Cryp- 

 tograuima Stelleri, and Asplen'mm angustifolium. The finding 

 of the latter will always be an occasion of note, and the writer 

 scoured these identical cliffs for many years before he found 

 a plant. This simply emphasizes, however, the extreme nicety 

 of nature's selection of habitat ; for knowing the proper recipe 

 of so much shade, rock-moisture and humus, a fine plant may 

 now be found at any time. 



The southern cliffs are not, as a rule, characteristically 

 clothed with plant life, or rather unclothed, for they are more 

 commonly bare. A few species, however, have here their great- 

 est distribution. Juniperus Virginiana is, in places, very com- 

 mon, but never assumes more than the proportions of a small 

 telephone pole, and always seems to mutely protest, by its un- 

 kempt condition, against the irony of fate that relegates it to 

 such a place. Aquilegia Canadensis is often common ; so is 

 Cain pallida rotnndifolia, for any bare wall dry enough suits 

 the latter. Pcllca is again in evidence. If the cliff happens to 

 have a moist base, it is a congenial habitation for Mimulus 

 Jamesii, Epilohiiim adenocaulon, Chelone glabra, Caltha palustris, 

 Salix Bebbiana, Carex hys'tricina, and Mimuhis alatiis. None 

 are characteristic. 



The transition cliffs are those that connect, say, a vertical 

 cliff facing north with a second cliff facing east, the various 

 fronts being due to the sinuous course of the waterway that 

 carved them out. Tn character they are compromise of cliff 

 and talus, a vertical l)and and then a steej) slope, and so on 

 from base to summit. Having all directions of front and all 

 kinds of soils, these places are remarkably rich in species, but 

 very few of these latter are definitely and peculiarly cliff 

 dwellers. These rough, untillable, non-pasturable, and largely 

 untrcadable slopes, have, however, a very great inlluencc on the 

 plant life of the region, for here arc collected, for the last 

 stand against the civilised death-warrant, a host of species that, 

 each selecting its circumscribed dry or moist rock or sunny or 



