294- VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



White willows are found growing in the fifth zone of 

 plants into which Linnaeus divided the Lapland Alps, 

 though rarely more than two feet high ; and with them is 

 their relative the green whortle-leaved willow, of still more 

 humble growth. At this point, the hills are rather brown 

 than green, being covered with creeping azaleas ; and a 

 few solitary flowers occupy such sheltered spaces, among 

 the rocks, as lie open to the sun and are screened from 

 the utmost extremity of cold ; but the only berries which 

 ripen at this degree of elevation are those of the black- 

 berried heath. The utmost boundary of this inhospitable 

 region is eight hundred feet below the verge of perpetual 

 snow ; beyond it the migratory Laplanders rarely fix their 

 dwellings, even during the summer months, as the rein- 

 deer lichen ceases to vegetate. 



