358 GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 



gitudinally towards the east, traverses plains that are 

 extensive towards the north, and almost everywhere 

 wooded. Here, but here only, a different kind of birch 

 constitutes the predominant forest tree, which the author 

 regards as one of the European species, and denominates 

 Betula alba (B. pubescens of Erman). It is so distinctly 

 separated geographically in the neighbourhood of the 

 river from B. Ermani, that on the road from Ganal to 

 Puschtschina, whilst from the coast to this place the latter 

 only is met with, the white birch suddenly begins to 

 form the forests as soon as the upper course of the Kam- 

 tschatka river is reached. Together with the birch, we 

 here find drawn a group of tall balsam poplars as straight 

 as a line ; this tree by itself forms large woods in the 

 middle of Kamtschatka. The underwood and shrubs 

 consist principally of Spircea, next of Lonicera, Crat&yus, 

 Prunus, and Salix. In the glades, in the midst of scanty 

 grass, a dark blue Iris grows ; it is everywhere common, 

 forming an incomparable ornament to the country, and is 

 succeeded at a later period by several Synantheraceous 

 perennials with beautiful flowers, as Aster, Achittea, and 

 Sonchus Sibiricus. 



Forests of Central Kamtschatka (pi. XIX, XX). A 

 strip of land extends across the middle of the peninsula, 

 from the west towards Cape Kronotzkoi; it is wooded 

 with Coniferse, no trace of which exists in the other dis- 

 tricts. The forests consist of two kinds of fir-trees, the 

 larger of which resembles the Canadian larch, the other 

 has the growth of our red pine, with which it is probably 

 identical : here also the birch and the aspen are associated 

 with them. As the pine-forests of Kamtschatka differ 

 from those of the north-west of America in their dryness, 

 so also the underwood merely consists of a thicket, 3 feet 

 high, composed of Roses and LonicercB, and beneath them 

 again a large number of bacciferous plants are concealed, 

 Vaccinia, Rubi, and Empetrum, exactly as occurs under 

 similar conditions in Scandinavia, so much so, that even 

 the species mentioned of these genera are identical with 



