1 68 Report of the Brown-Harvard Expedition. 



rarely in large groups except fairly well in from the coast.* 

 We found, for instance, spruces growing to lo feet in height 

 a little way up the St. Charles River, and it is reported that 

 far up St. Lewis Inlet they are large enough for ship-timber. 

 In the ravines on the shore of Aillik Bay and in a low, flat 

 valley at its head, we noticed considerable groups of trees, 

 including willows ip feet and spruce 30 feet high. Still fur- 

 ther inland, along the shores and near the head of Mokkovik 

 Bay, there were somewhat extensive thick groves in which 

 spruce attained the height of perhaps 50 feet. Back of the 

 mission station at Hopedale is a large grove of larch; and at 

 Nain another of various evergreens. These were the only 

 places where we encountered trees of any size. Elsewhere 

 we found only scattered, stunted trees, or scrub growths 

 that were very rarely thick enough to cause any difficulty in 

 walking. Black and white spruce, dwarf birch, and various 

 willows were the most common forms, with larch, juniper, 

 balsam fir, and alder also occurring. Hebron is, apparently, 

 the northern limit of evergreens near the coast, for north of 

 it we saw none of them at all, even on our walk a considerable 

 distance inland. Alder, birch, and willows still grew vigor- 

 ously, the latter attaining the height of seven or eight feet in 

 moist hollows near Nachvak Bay. 



The great mass of the vegetation of Labrador consists 

 of low forms. It grows so thickly and vigorously in the 

 thin soil, however, that the country never gives the im- 

 pression of being lifeless and barren. In the far south, 

 especially on moist lowlands, Sphagnum is often a prevail- 

 ing growth. But aside from its rather rare supremacy, al- 



* See Low, Annual Report, Geol. Surv. Can., VIII, 31 L; quoted in full 

 in Section V of this report. 



i 



