164 
Not only did these cryptogamic forms of plant life flourish 
here, but also a number of species of phanerogamic plants as 
well. The top of Mt. Clinton, in the Canadian life-zone, fur- 
nished me with more new specimens of flowering plants for my 
herbarium than any other one spot on the ascent of Mt. Wash- 
ington. Growing in the midst of the lichens and mosses we found 
beds of the great bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), and these, 
happily, were loaded down with delicious fruit upon which we 
feasted. Along with them there were hundreds of little bushes, 
only about 6 or 7 inches tall, in full bloom—each with 3 or 4 
pretty red gamopetalous flowers. These proved to be the moun- 
tain rose-bay (Rhododendron lapponicum). Compared with the 
R. maximum as seen, for instance, in the damp valleys of the 
Pocono Mountains in northern Pennsylvania where it some- 
times attains a height of 40 feet, this little alpine cousin, in full 
bloom when only from 2 to 7 inches tall, furnished an instructive 
lesson in the effect of environmental conditions on plants of the 
same genus! 
Scattered along the trail and amongst the bilberries we 
found also groups of labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum)—said 
to be the phanerogamous plant which approaches closest to 
the North Pole. Close by were scores of cloudberries (Rubus 
Chamaemorus), named thus because of being the only member 
of the genus to regularly grow above the level of the clouds. It 
is not a vine or trailer as are most of its low-lying relatives, but 
rather a little shrub, 3 to 10 inches tall, with only 1 or 2 leaves 
and a single terminal flower. 
A few feet farther on, where the trail was a little wider and 
the ground drier and more exposed, were found nine more spe- 
cies of rare alpine plants. First was discovered the mountain 
Azalea (Chamaecistus procumbens); then two alpine rushes 
(Juncus filiformis and J. trifidus); then the three-seeded sedge 
(Carex trisperma) and the tufted club-rush (Scirpus caespitosus). 
Soon thereafter were found hundreds of little colonies of D14- 
pensia lapponica, which grew in more or less circular clumps $° 
dense and tightly appressed to the ground (in order to resist the 
dreadful wintry blasts which seek to tear everything off the 
more exposed portions of the mountain) that it required con- 
siderable effort to even penetrate these solid mats with a knife 
in order to procure specimens! 
