THE LABRADOR FLORA. 6,3 



rence, and the Greenland flora, represented by the 

 Arenaria groenlandica, the dwarf cranberry, and the 

 curlew-berry or black Empetrum, nestled among the 

 snow and ice of the glacier-ridden hills. 



We landed on the morning of July 7th, and I was 

 astonished at the richness of the arctic flora which car- 

 peted the more level portions of the island. Groves of 

 dwarfed alders, over which one could look while sitting 

 down, crowded the sides of the valleys, watered by rills 

 of pure ice-cold water. The groves of spruce and hack- 

 matack were of the same lilliputian height. In the 

 glades of these dwarfed forests and scattered over the 

 moss-covered rocks and bogs were Cornus canadensis, 

 two varieties in flower ; Kalmia glauca was in profusion, 

 as attractive a flower as any ; the curlew-berry (^Em- 

 petrum nigrum^, the dwarf cranberry, with other flow- 

 ers and grasses characteristic of the arctic and Alpine 

 regions. Particularly noticeable were the clumps of 

 dwarf wiUow from six inches to a foot in height, now in 

 flower and visited by the arctic humble-bee and other 

 wild bees. Other insects of subarctic and arctic types 

 were numerous, among them a geometrid moth {Rheu- 

 maptera hastata), which extends from the Alps and 

 snow-fields of Lapland around through Greenland and 

 Labrador to the mountain regions of Maine, New 

 Hampshire, northern New York, Colorado, and Alaska. 

 The flies, beetles, and other forms had an arctic aspect, 

 showing that on the shores of the Strait of Belle Isle 

 the insect fauna is largely tinged with circumpolar 

 forms. 



On the 7th of July our party of seven men landed, 

 lodged in a Sibley tent, and the Nautilus left us for the 



