October 30, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



525 



and are handsomely blotched with dark brown or blackish 

 purple, the incurved tip of each sepal invariably having a large 

 blotch of the same color. The small lip is pale creamy yellow, 

 with a purple stain outside at the base. The bluntly ovate 

 incurved side lobes are each traversed by seven sepia-brown 

 parallel lines, and the disc, which is covered with tine white 

 hair, has two parallel elevated keels or ridges which terminate 

 in a small, hairy protuberance in the centre of the very small 

 middle lobe, which is oblong in shape, creamy white and lined 

 with purple-brown, while the slender, archingcolumn is white, 

 tipped behind and streaked in front with purple. On each 

 side of the yellow pollen masses, which show through the 

 anther case, is a small purple spot, thus giving the column the 

 appearance of some insect peeping out from between the in- 

 curved side lobes of the lip. 



It is a peculiar fact, and one worthy of notice, that the first 

 five or six flowers at the base of the peduncle are always ab- 

 normal, that is, abnormal in differing from the other flowers, 

 but natural in being always present. These lower flowers 

 possess only two sepals and two petals, all larger and more 

 thickly blotched than in the normal flowers. The column is 

 also present and normal, but the lip and third sepal are entirely 

 absent. I have seen a dried flower of G. speciosum having 

 only four segments and a column, but in all the other species 

 known, with the exception of G. Fenzlianum, which lurks in 

 some obscure German herbarium, I did not see this peculiarity 

 at all. Neither has it been mentioned in the description of any 

 other species, so far as I can find out, a fact which in itself in- 

 dicates that abnormal flowers have not been noticed, or surely 

 such a fact would have been mentioned. G. Measuresianuin, 

 then, possesses the distinction of always having abnormal 

 flowers at the base of the peduncle. Now the question arises, 

 what is the object of these abnormal flowers .' In nature every- 

 thing has its use, but what is the use of these flowers? It is 

 not possible that they can be female, while the others are male, 

 for two reasons. First, because the column is precisely the 

 same as that in the ordinary flower, having its pollen masses 

 and other organs intact ; and, second, because the pedicels of 

 female flowers, as in Cycnoches and Catasetums, are, as a rule, 

 much thicker, on account of containing the ovary. But in the 

 abnormal flowers of G. Measiiresianum there is no difference 

 whatever in the thickness and length of their pedicels and 

 those of the ordinary flowers. If, then, these lower flowers are 

 not female, what are they ? Perhaps time will show. 



At present little can be said about the cultivation of this 

 species, but, judging from the strong and numerous growths 

 thrown up by the imported pieces here in the nursery, one 

 may safely say that it will not be a very difficult subject to 

 manage. Some of the pieces are done up in well drained teak 

 baskets in a compost of rough, librous peat and sphagnum, 

 while others are hung up just as they arrived, in a warm, moist 

 house. No water, or only very little, is given yet, the moisture 

 of the atmosphere being apparently sufficient for their wants, 

 as the pseudo-bulbs have become nice and plump and send 

 out their growths. It might be mentioned that in its native 

 country this species is always subject to plenty of sun and 

 abundance of water during the season of growth, and the sight 

 some of the plants present maybe imagined from the fact that 

 the collector saw one piece with fifteen spikes over five feet 

 high, each bearing about seventy fully expanded flowers. 



St. Albans, England. Johii Weathers. 



The Forest. 



The Mountain Forests of Vancouver's Island. 



'T'HE forests of the mountains in the interior of Vancouver's 

 -'■ Island differ materially from those of the low grounds 

 near the coast, while as one travels inland the Douglas Fir 

 (Pseudotsuga taxifolid) is the chief tree until an elevation of 

 about 800 feet is reached. It then becomes insensibly inter- 

 mixed with the western White Pine [Piniis nionticola) and a 

 sprinkling of Red Cedar {Thuya gigantea). Within a few 

 miles of Departure Bay, where all steamers bound for Alaska 

 take in coal, rises Mount Benson, attaining the height of 

 3,360 feet, at about eight miles in a direct line from the coast. 

 The lower slopes of this mountain are covered with Douglas 

 Fir of enormous size, many of the trees being nearly 300 "feet 

 high and over eight feet in diameter. The chief undergrowth 

 is the Bracken l^Pteris aqiiilina, var. lanuginosa), which is gen- 

 erally from four to six feet high, and so interlaced that to force 

 one's way through it, without first tearing it apart with the 

 hands, is impossible. After this is passed the under- 

 growth is composed of Salal {Gajtltheria Shallon), which is, if 

 anything, more difficult to get through. Amongst the Salal 



the trees stand closer together, and are much less in diameter, 

 but tower straight as arrows to an immense height. Here the 

 Pine becomes quite frequeiit and the Salal more interesting, 

 for, in great profusion, the rare Boschniakia Hookcri is grow- 

 ing as a parasite upon its roots. 



Then, as one ascends still higher, the western Hemlock 

 {Tsiiga Mertensiana) comes in, and our forest is composed of 

 four species. Gradually the trees grow less in size, until, as 

 the summit is neared, they become stunted, but still healthy 

 and vigorous. On the summit two species appear, as if they 

 were new creations. These are Tsiiga Paltoniana and Abies 

 aniabilis. 



Later explorations on other mountains showed that the same 

 trees kept their relative position, but toward the north were 

 foundat a decreasing altitude. Itwasascertainedthattheforest- 

 trees of one mountain were those of another, and that Tsuga 

 Pattoiiiana and Abies amabilis were the rule, and not the ex- 

 ception, as they were in company on every mountain and 

 were the last to disappear at an altitude of about 5,500 feet. 

 Above this very few trees are found, but it was quite evident 

 that their absence is not caused so much by cold as by the 

 immense snowfall of the moist winter, which leaves the moun- 

 tain summits covered to a great depth in the spring. Close to 

 snow of imknown depth, trees, with a diameter of two feet, 

 are growing vigorously on Mount Arrowsmith, while above 

 them all is snow or depauperated and broken trees, flat- 

 tened down by the snow, growing while they can, and lying 

 dormant the remainder of the year. 



Without exception, the forests of Vancouver's Island are the 

 finest now in Canada. It is sad to think that these noble forests 

 are being devastated year after year by fires started by men 

 who are "improving" the land, and what it is impossible to 

 do with the axe is being done with fire. In every part of the 

 island the timber is sound and fit for market, and it might 

 be kept so but for the recklessness of irresponsible men. For 

 every tree destroyed by the axe a thousand are being destroyed 

 by fire, and year by year the number is increasing. During 

 the last half of July and August and early September (1887)- the 

 whole country was enveloped in smoke, and fire met the trav- 

 eler at every point. A few years more and these noble forests 

 will be but the blackened remains of a glorious heritage, as 

 every year increases the power of the fire and gives it more 

 prepared fuel for the next season. It is not alone on Van- 

 couver's Island that this destruction is going on. 



The Olympian Mountains, on the other side of Puget Sound, 

 in Washington, are being denuded in precisely the same way; 

 and this autumn (1889), over nearly the whole of British 

 Colunibia and northern Washington, the sky was obscured for 

 six weeks by the dense smoke of the forest-fires raging in all 

 parts of the countrv. John Macoun. 



Ottawa. ' 



Forest Fires in Northern Canada. 



"NTORTHWARD of the deciduous and mixed forests of 

 -'-^ southern Canada, a vast belt of conifers, about 700 miles 

 in breadth, stretches for 4,000 miles from the eastern coast of 

 Labrador to the Rocky Mountains and continues beyond them 

 into Alaska. The northern zone of this belt consists of Black 

 and White Spruce and Tamarac, but as we go south these 

 become mixed with Banksian Pine, Balsam Fir, and in the east 

 with White Cedar, and finally with Red and White Pine. 

 Excepting near the verge of the forest, there is also a greater 

 or lesser mixture of Aspen, rough-barked Poplar, White Birch 

 and the various northern Willows, but in a general way this 

 belt may be described as a coniferous forest. 



Notwithstanding its immense extent, it may be said that fire 

 has run through every part of it at one period or another. 

 Forests of this kind are particularly liable to destruction by 

 fire. The trees are comparatively small, and where they do 

 not stand closely together the branches grow all the way down 

 to the ground. The open spaces, no matter how rocky, are 

 covered with reindeer mosses, which in the summer-time are 

 as dry and inflanmiable as tinder, while the deep carpeting of 

 the yellow mosses among the trees is equally dry, and helps 

 to give body to the flames. 



The Indian hunter or wild Indian of the north, knowing 

 how destructive forest-fires are to the animals on which he 

 depends for food and fur, takes all possible care to prevent 

 them, yet if one ascends a high hill in any part of these 

 regions, so as to obtain an extensive view of the countrv, he 

 will find the normal condition of the woods to be "patchey," 

 or to consist of areas of second growths of various ages mixed 

 with others of older limber. The latter may have attained its 

 full growth, and yet not represent the original foi'est, as it has 

 probably sprung up on ground which had been burnt over at 



