dor, naturally brings several regions to mind; but as a 

 single area within the possible reach of this hope, the 

 Island of Mount Desert, with its adjacent islets and head- 

 lands, stands out as offering the greatest natural 

 diversity. 



This comes obviously from the fact that Mount Desert 

 is the highest land on the Atlantic coast of North America 

 south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its boldly sculptured 

 hills, which rise directly from the water 's edge, attaining 

 altitudes of almost montane character. 



The exposed headlands and bogs of the Mount Desert 

 region support between two and three hundred species 

 of plants which are typical of the arctic, subarctic, and 

 Hudsonian regions of America, and which on the eastern 

 coast of New England or the alpine summits of the White 

 Mountains reach their actual or approximate southern 

 limits — such plants, for instance, as the Black Crowberry, 

 Empetrum nigrum; the Baked-apple Berry, Rubus 

 Chamaemorus; the Creeping Juniper, Juniperus Jiorizon- 

 talis; the Greenland Sandwort, Arenaria groenlandica; 

 the Rose-root, Sedum roseum; and the Banksian Pine, 

 Pinus Banksiana. 



But the flora of the Mount Desert region is not by any 

 means entirely arctic or subarctic. There we find essen- 

 tially all the common plants of the Canadian zone, and 

 mingling with them in sheltered nooks and meadows or 

 on warm slopes, many scores of plants which reach their 

 extreme northern or northeastern limit on Mount Desert 

 or the immediate coast — such plants as the Pitch Pine, 

 Pinus rigida; the Bear Oak, Quercus ilicifolia; the Sweet 

 Pepperbush, Clethra alnifoUa; the Swamp Loosestrife, 

 Decodon verticillatus; the Meadow Beauty, Rhexia vir- 

 ginica; and the Maple-leaved Viburnum, Vihurnwn 

 acerifolium. 



This extraordinary accumulation within one small area 

 of the typical plants of the arctic realm, of the Canadian 

 zone, and in many cases of the southern coastal plain, 



6 



