Luxuricmce of the Arctic Vegetation. 115 



Mimulus which nods to its own golden reflection in many of the 

 brooks of New England. That purple EpUobrum, Avith now and 

 then a pure white variety, so common everywhere on these hills, 

 is the same wanderer that we have seen over many square miles 

 beneath the burnt woods of Maine. These bushes with obscure 

 white flowers, looking like little waxen bells, we recognize at 

 once as huckleberries ; in a short time they will be loaded with 

 luscious fruit. Inviting couches of moss beneath the spruce 

 trees are festooned and decorated with fairy shapes of brown and 

 green, that recall many a long ramble among the Adirondack 

 hills and in the Canadian Avoods. The licapods, equiseta and 

 ferns are many of them identical with the tracery on mossy 

 mounds covering fallen hemlocks in the Otsego woods in NeAV 

 York, but display greater luxuriance and fresher and more bril- 

 liant colors. That graceful little beach-fern, here and there faded 

 to a rich brown, foretelling of future changes, is identical with 

 the little fairy form we used to gather long ago along the borders 

 of the Great Lakes. Asters and gentians, delicate orchids and 

 purple lupines, besides many less familiar plants, crowd the hill- 

 sides and deck the unkept meadows with a brilliant mass of 

 varied light. In the full sunshine, the hill-slopes appear as if 

 the fields of petals clothing them had the prism's poAver, and 

 Avere spreading a web of rainboAV tints over the lush leaves and 

 grasses below. 



On our return to Blossom island, late in September, Ave found 

 many of the floAvers faded, but in their places there was a pro- 

 fusion of berries nearly as brilliant in color as the petals that 

 heralded their coming. Many of the thickets, inconspicuous 

 before, had then a deep, rich yelloAV tint, due to an abundance 

 of luscious salmon berries, larger than our largest blackberries. 

 The huckleberries were also ripe, and in wonderful profusion. 

 These additions to our table Avere especially appreciated after 

 liAdng for more than a month in the snow. The ash trees were 

 holding aloft great bunches of scarlet berries, CA^en deeper and 

 richer in color than the ripe leaves on the same brilliant branches. 

 The deep Avoods were brilliant with the broad yelloAV leaves of 

 the Devil's club, above Avhich rose spikes of crimson berries. 

 The dense thickets of currant bushes, so luxuriant that it Avas 

 difficult to force one's way through them, had received a dusky, 

 smoke-like tint, due to abundant blue-black strings of fruit sus- 

 pended all along the. under sides of the branches. 



