360 GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 



vicinity of the coast, but appears to be most widely dif- 

 fused between 1000' and 2000'. Its nuts are nutritious, 

 and are eaten, as is also the fruit of Pyrus mmbucifolia: 

 The most extensive thickets consist of the northern alder, 

 which also grows in the lower regions, in common with 

 two others, but between 2000' and 3000' exists alone, 

 limited by the alpine flora, bare stones, and eternal snow. 

 On all the high mountains of Kamtschatka there exists a 

 region in which it exclusively covers the soil. Its upper 

 limit had been previously determined correctly by Erman 

 to be 2890', i. e. more than 2000' beneath the snow-line 

 (5000') ; but Salise arctica (4974'), Parry a Ermani, and 

 Saxifragi MerJcii ascend as high as the latter. 



Grass Plain in the West of Kamtschatka, on the 

 Bolschaja-Reka (pi. XXII). The south-western slope of 

 the peninsula is comparatively poor in pictorial beauty 

 and botanical variety; the forest-growth is less than in 

 the east, the morasses are more extensive, and bushes of 

 willow predominate almost everywhere with the peat- 

 moors. The landscape, which was taken in September, 

 is remarkable from the astonishing height of two wither- 

 ing Umbelliferous plants, which give a most peculiar 

 character to the grass plains of the west. They probably 

 belong to the genera Angelica and Heracleum ; their 

 strong stems appear more than fifteen feet high ; thus, 

 growing in numbers, they project far beyond the Grasses 

 and other herbaceous plants. We next have a tall gre- 

 garious Urtica, 10' high, and from which the natives 

 prepare a valuable yarn. The remaining plants agree 

 generally with those of the grass plains in the east. 



The Algae of Kamtschatka are described and figured in 

 the splendid illustrated work of Postels and Ruprecht ; 

 they were also collected in the expedition of the younger 

 Mertens (Illustrationes algarum in itinere nauarchi Liitke 

 collectarum. Petropoli, 1840, fol.) 



Zuccarini has published a very valuable sketch of the 

 Flora of Japan (Notizen liber die Flora von Japan und 

 die bisher hieruber vorliegenden wissenschaftlichen Lei- 



