186:2.] REVIEW. 343 



'' Conspicuous/' the author remarks, " among the hardy climb- 

 ers are two coarse and poisonous weeds of the river valleys, that 

 look like intruders into the company of the moi'e dwarfish alpine 

 plants; the Cow Parsnip [Hcracleum lanatum) and the White 

 Hellebore {l^eratrum vir'ule). Both of these plants were seen 

 struggling up through the ground at the margin of the snow and 

 climbing up moist hollows almost to the top of the precipices. . , . 

 Less conspicuous and better suited to the surrounding vegetation 

 were the Bluets [Oldenlandia coerulea), — now in blossom here, as 

 they had been months before in the low country, — the dwarf 

 Cornel [Cornus canadensis) , Vin(\. the Twin-flower, Linnaa borealis. 

 . . . One of the most interesting was the Northern Painted Cup 

 [Castilleia septentrionalis) , a plant which abounds on the coast 

 of Labrador and extends thence through all Arctic North Ame- 

 rica to the Rocky Mountains, and is perhaps identical with the 

 C. sibirica of Northern Asia, and the C. pallida of Northern 

 Europe." 



Several passages about the origin or geographical relations of 

 the plants on the White Mountains, separated so far from what 

 some would call the centres of vegetation, have been marked for 

 extraction ; but, on seconi thoughts, it was determined that 

 the space they would occupy might be filled with matter more 

 readable, and more intelligible to our readers, than hypotheses 

 on the origin and distribution of species. 



After stating that difference of altitude produces no sensible 

 change in the species, except that of sliortening the stem, the 

 author remarks that the tendency of the ''struggle for existence" 

 is to confirm rather than to modify the characters of the species. 

 See page 97. 



Another brief extract will show that Dr. Dawson, the author 

 of the "Flora of the White ^lountains," is not an implicit believer 

 in the Darwinian theory, which professes to explain all the mu- 

 tations or variabilities of plants on the hypothesis of a necessary 

 struggle for life ; for example, page 99, he says that Epilobium 

 alsinifolium — which varies in foliage, and according to some bo- 

 tanists presents two typical forms, viz. one with nearly entire 

 and the other with toothed leaves-— H^s obtained the unenviable 

 notoriety of ambiguity. "Thus," our author remarks, "we find 

 that tliis little plant has been induced to assume a suspicious de- 

 gree of variability ; yet it is strange that both species or varieties 



