176 Canadian Record of Science. 



Some Conspicuous British Columbia 

 Summer Plants. 1 . 



I had the pleasure of exhibiting to the Society and 

 of placing in the museum specimens of plants collected in 

 the Kocky Mountains in the summer of 1897, reported in 

 the " Eecord of Science," Vol. VIII., pp. 163-192, but 

 these were mainly found in what is known as the Arid 

 Kegion, east of the Columbia river, a very few being 

 reported from as far west as North Bend. The plants 

 now catalogued and placed in the museum were obtained 

 chiefly on the Pacific slope. A new and remarkable 

 flora is encountered as soon as one gets west of the coast 

 range of mountains. The moisture of the atmosphere and 

 the genial climate conditioned by the Japan current 

 produce a most luxuriant vegetation wherever the soil 

 admits of it. Introduced plants attain vast proportions 

 compared with those they reach in their native home. 

 For instance, the Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), furze 

 (Ulex JBuropceus), ivy (Hedera helix), foxglove {Digitalis 

 purpurea) and even the daisy (Bellis perennis) — all of 

 which have become naturalized and are spreading 

 rapidly about Victoria and Vancouver — -grow to twice the 

 size they attain in Great Britain. And then the trees are 

 phenomenally large, especially the conifers ; but even 

 the alders, which are never more than large shrubs with 

 us in the east, are seen two or three feet in diameter, 

 with a corresponding height. British Columbia, therefore, 

 offers a most nviting field for botanical research. Some- 

 thing has been done in the way of cataloguing its flora by 

 enthusiastic field-workers like Mr. Anderson, of the 

 Agricultural Department of the province, and Mr. A. J. 

 Hill, of New Westminster, over and above the information 

 contained in the reports of the Geological Survey of the 



Head before the Natural History Society of Montreal, April 5th, 1901. 



