INTRODUCTION 3 



fern and moss ; decaying skeletons may be the nidus of con- 

 spicuous tufts of Tetraplodon or some related genus ; and other- 

 wise naked cliffs are everywhere colored in soft but pleasing 

 shades by their own lichen flora. 



Landing at almost any point in the forest region, one is so 

 fully occupied with the task of clambering over or under fallen 

 trunks and picking a precarious way through the undergrowth 

 of devil's club and other shrubbery, that it is not until he has 

 forced his way some distance from the shore that he pauses to 

 admire the immense trunks which surround him ; and later still 

 comes the realization that the ground is ankle-deep with mosses 

 of the most luxuriant growth, which, saturated from the frequent 

 rains, cover every moldering log, tapestry the living trunks, 

 and hang in festoons from the branches, often so densely as 

 to have smothered the less vigorous outer trees exposed to the 

 wind and to occasional spray from the sea, in this respect recall- 

 ing the effect sometimes produced in subtropical regions by the 

 trailing Tillandsia, on our New England coast, as in Alaska, by 

 species of Usnea, and in California by Ramalina^ of similar 

 growth. In Alaska, however, the true mosses also produce this 

 effect ; and the most striking among them are two large species 

 of Hylocomium (H. sflendens and H. loreuni). Nestling among 

 the carpeting mosses and liverworts are many of the smaller and 

 more delicate flowering plants of this region, as well as a few of 

 the more tender fernworts ; and it is here that a large part of the 

 fleshy fungi find the most favorable conditions for their growth. 



Whenever an opening occurs in the forest, the bogs of lower 

 latitudes are reproduced, and the peat mosses (Sphagnum), in 

 considerable variety, assume their characteristic appearance and 

 afford a nidus for the delicate cranberries, sundews, and butter- 

 worts. With the ceasing of the forest begins a continuous wet 

 prairie and bog region, which passes into the true tundra of the 

 high north, frozen to a great depth and thawing for only a foot or 

 two in the short summer, during which, however, its mossy cover- 

 ing is enlivened by a blaze of flowers scarcely to be surpassed. 



In these open places ferns appear in greatest luxuriance, and a 

 clamber up the mountain side at Sturgeon River Bay, on Kadiak 

 Island, through wet lady-fern nearly waist-deep, is an ex- 



