r: 
a 
1906] GANONG—NASCENT FOREST OF MISCOU BEACH IOI 
swamp, offering nothing peculiar unless it be the small size of 
some of the plants, notably the poplar. But these places develop 
yet farther in time, and there come in after the poplar three willows: 
Salix balsamijera, S. lucida, and S. candida, forming very dense 
thickets, and apparently under congenial conditions. Finally comes 
in the alder, which appears to be mostly a form of the green alder, 
Alnus mollis, giving us the culmination of the swale thickets. 
THE SANDY WOODS. 
Inside the swale zone, through almost the whole length of the 
plain, extends a narrow zone, only some four or five dune beaches 
Fic. 13.—Typical sandy woods, just inside the swales, looking north; in the cen- 
ter a dune beach, bearing scanty beach grass and reindeer lichen, while on the slopes 
are small juniper mats with white spruces. 
wide, of remarkable sandy woods, whose characters are well shown 
by fig. 13. Their most striking feature is perhaps the relative bare- 
ness of the tops of the beaches, which remain far more clear of vege- 
tation than do most of the beaches outside of them; and this bare- 
ness, in conjunction with the presence of trees on the slopes and in 
the hollows, gives rise to curious vistas as shown by the photograph. 
The bareness must have some physical basis, but I was not able 
to discover it. These dune beaches, further, are very narrow, low, 
and regular, with hardly any true hollows between, so that the turf 
