MacMillan : shores at lake of the woods. 1011 



Filial talus. This name is applied to those talus slopes upon 

 which the process of weathering has progressed to such an 

 extent that the talus blocks are all broken up into small frag- 

 ments. Together with this process there is always a deposition 

 of soil in the interstices, part of this soil being derived from 

 original talus vegetation, and part of it from drainage of silt 

 upon the slope. Such slopes do not become established rapidly 

 in the Lake of the Woods region and a slope covered with fine 

 talus and soil is evidence of a long history and many rearrange- 

 ments among the plants which tenant it. A number of forma- 

 tions might be described upon such slopes, but it should first 

 be noted that as the slope becomes " more even and regular, 

 owing to the weathering and infiltrating processes, a tendency 

 towards zonal distributions arises and many fine-talus slopes 

 have well marked zones of plants established upon them. One 

 or two formations on fine-talus are, however, of special inter- 

 est. The following have been observed at Lake of the Woods: 



I. Fine-talus lichen formation. The species are mostly Cla- 

 don ti is and Slereocaulons. The soil-dwelling Cladonias e. g. 

 Cladonia pyxidata are abundant, mixed with crevice-dwelling 

 and lithophytic forms, such as Cladonia rangiferina and Stereo- 

 caulon paschale. Upon such a talus slope there are abundant 

 mosses, Barbulas, Bryums and Polytrichums, and an admixture 

 of small grasses and herbs. The lichens, however, give the 

 character to the formation. 



II.- Pine-talus fern formation. Upon slopes of fine talus it is 

 not uncommon to find a formation consisting almost exclusively 

 of Dryopteris and Polypodium. Such slopes are generally in- 

 clined at an angle of about 45° to the plane of the lake level. 

 They seem to develop well in rather open, unsheltered places. 

 Such a slope is well developed on Trim-tree island in the Little 

 Traverse. 



III. Gramineous talus turf. Here the dominant plants are 

 members of the genus Agrostis, and over the slope a pretty 

 even turf of Agrostis hiemalis is often formed. The loosening 

 of the soil by the small stones imbedded in it seems to favor 

 the growth of this grass, and such slopes have been observed 

 at several different points on the islands of the lake. 



IV. SambucUs talus slopes. The characteristic plant is Sam- 

 bucus pubens, the elder-bush. This, with bushes of the red 

 raspberry (Ruhus) forms a rather characteristic shrub on cer- 

 tain talus slopes, especially toward the periphery of small 

 islands, not too elevated nor with strongly precipitous shores. 



