4 ALASKA BOTANY 



perience not soon to be forgotten. Next to this, perhaps the 

 most striking fern is Blechnum, the broad sterile fronds of 

 which, pressed to the ground, are in marked contrast with the 

 narrower, erect, fertile ones a dimorphism again seen in the 

 cliff-brake, Allosorus. As in alpine bogs of lower latitudes, the 

 addertongue (Ophtoglossum) and moonworts (Botrychmm) are 

 found interestingly associated with true ferns, mosses, and the 

 smaller flowering plants ; and the moonworts in particular are 

 represented by a goodly number of the more interesting species. 

 One of the characteristic features of the moraine flora in Glacier 

 Bay and elsewhere is the abundance of a loosely straggling 

 scouring-rush, referable to Equisetum variegatum but quite 

 unlike the type of that species ; while the common horsetail, E. 

 arvense, which is everywhere abundant, assumes, under the in- 

 fluence of environment, a variety of forms and sizes, puzzling 

 alike in the fixity of certain characters (as the triquetrous twigs 

 of the common boreal type) and in the pliability of others. 



The authors of the chapters dealing with the several groups 

 of cryptogams have so fully analyzed their respective branches 

 of the Alaskan flora, both as to their components and their rela- 

 tions to the floras of other parts of the world, as to make it un- 

 necessary to do more here than summarize their statements, 

 showing that a total of 1,616 species of cryptogams may now 

 be ascribed to Alaska, of which 240 are fungi, 459 algae, 400 

 lichens, 460 Bryophytes, and 57 Pteridophytes. 



In a land marked by a long winter, with an abundance of fish 

 and game within easy reach, it is not surprising that the natives 

 of Alaska have given little attention to agriculture, and it is 

 interesting to note, as a consequence of this failure to cultivate 

 plants, that the greatest possible use is made of spontaneous 

 vegetable products. While the most valuable of these are de- 

 rived from flowering plants, the cryptogams are put to many, 

 if not very important, uses. 



To a seaside people, cut off from the interior by high and ab- 

 rupt mountains with few and remote practicable passes, the sea 

 offers not only the most used highway, but it yields a large part 

 of their subsistence. Though few of the marine plants, which 

 are chiefly algae, are of much importance as articles of diet, 



