352 THE ASIATIC FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



II.-LIST OF PLANTS COLLECTED BY DR. AND MRS. LEONHARD STEJNEGER ON THE 

 COMMANDER ISLANDS DURING 1895 AND 1897. 



By Fkedeeick V. Covillb and J. N. Rose. 



Of the various botanical collections known to have been made on the Commander 

 Islands, those of Georg Wilhelin Stellcr, 1741-42, Benedict Dybowski, 1870, and Julian 

 Wiemuth, 1879, are deposited at St. Petersburg, Russia; those of Frans Eeinhold 

 Kjellman, 1879, and Ernst Almquist, 1879, at Stockholm, Sweden ; those of James M. 

 Macoun, 1891, at Ottawa, Canada; and those of Leonhard Stejneger, 1882-1897, and 

 Nicolai Bjorkquist, 1882, in the United States National Herbarium at Washington. 

 Desirable as is a complete list of all the plants known from these islands, it has 

 been impracticable, on account of the wide separation of the various collections, to 

 give a properly digested account of them with critical identifications of all the species. 

 The present paper, therefore, has been confined to an enumeration of those plants 

 collected by Dr. Stejneger of which no report has yet been published. 



Most of the information relative to the flowering plants of the Commander Islands 

 heretofore published is to be found in two papers by Dr. Asa Cray and Dr. Stejneger, 

 issued in 1885,' another by Dr. Kjellman in 1887,^ and a third by Dr. George Vasey in 

 the same year.'' 



The Commander Islands bear no trees, the fuel customarily used being driftwood 

 from the mainland. To the violent wet winds that sweep over the islands in winter 

 is doubtless to be attributed this absence of arboreal vegetation, for tlie conditions of 

 temperature and humidity are such as to render probable the occurrence of trees 

 under otherwise suitable conditions. The geographic relationship of the flora, origi- 

 nally pointed out by Steller and afterwards more critically investigated by Kjellman, 

 is primarily Kamchatkau, with strong Aleutian and Arctic elements. To this evident 

 triple derivation can be added almost no insular specialization, for the islands are the 

 type locality of but two species, Gassiope oxycoccoides Gray and Alopecurtis stejnegeri 

 Vasey, neither of which is by any means certainly confined to these islands. 



1 Gray, Aea. Notes iqioii the plants collected on the Commander Islands (Bering and Copper 

 islands) by Leonhard Stejneger. (In Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., v. 7, pp. 527-529. 1885.) Stejneger, 

 Leonhard. Additional notes on the plants of the Commander Islands. (In Proc. U S Nat Mus v 7 

 pp. 529-538. 1885.) ' ' " '' ' ' 



2 Kjellman, Frans Reinhold. Om Kommandirski-Oarnas Fanerogamflora. (In Nordenskiold 

 A. E. Vega-Exped. ^'etenskap. lakttag., v. 4, pp. 281-309. Stockholm, 1887.) 



3 Vasey, George. Description of .llopeciirits stejnegeri, a new species of grass from the Com- 

 mander Islands. (In Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., v. 10, p. 153. 1887.) 



