84 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



Of the plants which grow on these islands other than the willow 

 bushes, which are barely two ells high, a separate list has been 

 given. ^^3 Upon the whole, I only remark that the greater number 

 of the rare and rock-inhabiting American plants described at 

 Cape St. Elias were still met with here and, in addition, a few 

 already which were seen on Bering's Island in 1742 and, later on 

 in the fall, in similar localities in Kamchatka. However, as far 

 as concerns those plants which grow in the valleys and in the low 

 and damp places, they are, with a few exceptions, the same as 

 those in Europe, Asia, and America in the same latitude. Aside 

 from the red whortleberries and the black crowberry, or shiksha 

 (Empetrum), which are found here in the greatest abundance, 

 the products of the vegetable kingdom of greatest use to us were 

 the glorious antiscorbutic herbs, such as Cochlearia, Lapathum 

 folio cubitali* Gentiana and other cresslike herbs, ^^^ which I 



account of the better protection and the breadth of the land toward the 

 north, and the westerly ones bare on account of the opposite conditions, 

 whether they are nearer to Asia, such as the first, second, and third 

 Kurile Islands and the two islands we saw on October 30 [Semichi 

 Islands], or nearer to America, like all those we observed in September 

 and October." 



193 The MS reads: "has been given at the end." Among the five manu- 

 script botanical documents mentioned above in footnote 119 there is no 

 plant list specifically devoted to the Shumagin Islands. The "Catalogus 

 plantarum . . . iuxta promontorium Eliae observatarum" there 

 referred to contains throughout references to plants observed "on the 

 island on September i" and one reference to Shumagin Island. It is 

 therefore probable that this is the separate list here referred to or else its 

 embodiment. 



* Rheum palmatum, which Steller used to designate thus in his manu- 

 scripts. — P. [See next footnote, third paragraph.] 



1" The red whortleberries are Vaccinium vitis idaea L., and the 

 Empelrum is E. nigrum L. 



The Cochlearia occurring in this region is now known as C. oblongifolia 

 D. C. It is probably identical with the water cress occurring on Bering 

 Island and variously recorded as C oblongifolia and C. officinalis. 



By Lapathum folio cubitali, dock with leaves a cubit long, Steller 

 probably meant Rumex occidentalis S. Wats., which is credited to Alaska. 

 Pallas' reference in the footnote to Rheum palmatum is quite unintelligi- 



