202 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



rasjDbeiTj. They are, however, keenly relished by the natives, and 

 even by American residents, being the only fruit growing upon 

 the islands. Perhaps no one plant that flowers on the Seal Islands 

 is more consjDicuous and abundant than is the Saxifraga oppositofo- 

 lia ; it grows over all localities, rank and tall in rich locations, to 

 stems scarcely one inch high on the thin, poor soil of hill summits 

 and sides, densely cespitose, with leaves all imbricated in four rows ; 

 and flowers almost sessile. I tliiuk that at least ten well-defined 

 species of the order Saxifragacece exist on the Pribylov group. 

 The Eanuncidacece are not so numerous ; but, still, a buttercup grow- 

 ing in every low slope where you may chance to wander is always 

 a pleasant reminder of pastures at home ; and, also, a suggestion 

 of the farm is constantly made by the luxuriant inflorescence of the 

 wild mustard [Cruciferce). The cliickweeds [GaryopihyUacece) are 

 well represented, and also the familiar yellow dandelion, Taraxacum 

 jMlustre. Many lichens (Lichenes) and soft mosses [3fusci) are in 

 their greatest exuberance, variety, and beauty here ; and myriads 

 of golden popi^ies [Papaveracece) are nodding their graceful heads 

 in the sweeping* of the winds — the first flowers to bloom, and the 

 last to fade. 



The chief economic value rendered by the botany of the Pribylov 

 Islands to the natives is an abundance of the basket-making rushes 

 (Juncacece), wliich the old " barbies " gather in the margins of 

 many of the lakes and pools. 



The only suggestion of a tree'* found growing on the Pribylov 



* That spruce-trees can be made to live transplanted from indigenous lo- 

 calities to tlie barren slopes of the Aleutian Islands, has been demonstrated ; 

 but in living these trees do nothing else, and scarcely grow to any appreciable 

 degree. A few spruce were transferred to Oonalashka when Veniaminov was 

 at work there in 1830-35. They are stil-l .standing and keep green, but the 

 change which such a long lapse of time should produce by growth has been 

 as difficult to determine as it is to find evidence of increased altitude to the 

 mountains around them since these Sitkan trees were planted with pious hope 

 at their feet fifty years ago. Though I can readily understand why the sal- 

 mon-berries of Oonalashka should not do well on the Seal Islands (though I 

 think they would at the Garden Cove of St. George), yet I believe that 

 the huckleberries of that section would thrive at many places if carefully 

 transplanted to these localities : the southern slopes of Cemetery Ridge at 

 Zapadnie ; the southern slopes of Telegraph Hill, and eastern fall of Tolstoi 

 peninsula down to the shore of the lagoon. They might also do well set out 

 at picked places around the Big Lake and on Northeast Point, around the little 

 lake thereon. If these bushes really throve here, they would be the means 



