Coastal Area at Bernard Harbour 39 ¢c 
them in distinct botanical zones. For the sake of clarity, however, the vege- 
foe will be described under two headings, viz.: Coastal Area and Inland 
rea. 
Coastal Area 
The beach region in the area in question everywhere consists of marine 
sand or gravel. The characteristics of the beach vegetation, the very limited 
number of certain xerophytic plants which inhabit it, and their scattered growth 
are well known from other places in the northern hemisphere and have already 
been given in this report so far as the arctic coast west of Mackenzie delta is 
concerned. As I found no beach plants at Bernard harbour which did not also 
occur along the coast farther west and as, generally speaking, the beach regions, 
as far as the vegetation is concerned, is far less developed, both as to width 
and littoral extension, at Bernard harbour than along the coast west of Mac- 
kenzie delta, it is not necessary to treat it in much detail. 
As mentioned above, the soil composing the beach is either of a sandy or of a 
gravelly nature. The places where sand solely occurs are indicated on Chip- 
man’s and Cox’s map (Plate XII) by stippled lines at the head of the bays 
cutting in between the points formed by the gravel ridges and at the mouth of 
the large fishing creek east of the harbour. Such places, which may properly 
be termed sand flats, are more or less inundated by melt-water in the spring. 
They are practically devoid of vegetation, except for a scattered, sparse growth 
here and there of Carex, Juncus, etc., which follow the course of the larger 
creeks out to where the fresh water mingles with the sea water.! 
A more distinct and much more extensive part of the beach region, however, 
is made up of the sand dunes at the bottom of bays, and of the gravel fringing 
the coast everywhere else. The sand dunes are not nearly as well developed as 
at Camden bay, clayey or gravelly stretches intervening. or replacing them 
along most of the coast. Elymus mollis is the most characteristic and dominant 
plant upon the sand dunes, but it also grows on the sandy stretches of gravel 
outside the dunes. The same is the case with Alopecurus alpinus and Trisetum 
spicatum, Halianthus peploides, and Carex stans, and to a less extent with Stel- 
laria humifusa. Polemonium and Epilobium latifolium do not occur on the sand 
dunes, probably owing to the less development of the dunes. On the other 
hand the minute Pleurogyne carinthiaca with its unusually large flowers was 
found only on the sandy ground near the beach at Bernard harbour. The large 
and much spreading Salix ovalifolia var. camdensis, so characteristic of the sand 
dunes in Camden bay, was not found at Bernard harbour. The two most typical 
beach plants at Bernard harbour are Mertensia maritima (rather rare) and 
Cochlearia groenlandica, both being practically limited to the gravelly or sandy, 
level beach, though Cochlearia is also a characteristic plant, together with Carex 
subspathacea and Stellaria humifusa, around lagoons and brackish ponds. The 
species of Artemisia occurring at Bernard harbour, viz.: A. Richardsoniana and 
A. hyperborea, are not limited to or particularly characteristic of the coastal 
sand dunes, though the greatest number of them may occur on dunes back from 
the coast where they and Elymus mollis sometimes compose practically the 
whole vegetation. Statice Armeria forma sibirica is generally considered a 
typical plant of beaches and salt-marshes and occurs as such also at Bernard 
harbour, mainly on gravel. Near the beach the individual plants are however 
both small and rather few, while farther inland, particularly upon the drier 
tundra swamps, the plant is more common and grows to a much larger size. 
A number of other plants often spread to the beach from their true home beyond 
it, but cannot be considered typical components of the beach vegetation. 
It has been emphasized, in the description of the vegetation along the 
Alaskan Arctic coast, how difficult, it is to differentiate between the beach and 
the coast region farther back, except through the lack of the most typical beach 
1 See Plate V, fig. 1, in Vol. VII, Pt. J, of these reports. 
