IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



monest flower of these Laurentian plains is Ca- 

 rex rariflora, though with singular regard for 

 its specific name it is by all means the rarest of 

 its genus in New England." But the most sur- 

 prising feature which is described and figured 

 by Professor Fernald is the presence of stumps 

 of forest-trees, and with them of a forest veg- 

 etation still lingering in the plains now fully 

 exposed to the sun. Dwarf cornel, snowberry, 

 linnaea, star-flower, clintonia, one-flowered py- 

 rola, dwarf Solomon's-seal were most in evi- 

 dence, and Professor Fernald mentions also 

 such typical forest species as red baneberry, 

 Dewey's sedge, great-spurred violet, and sweet- 

 scented bedstraw. 



I measured several of the stumps that were 

 a foot or two high with great sprawling roots, 

 now destitute of bark and blanched by the sun 

 and storm, but yet fully a foot in diameter or 

 three feet in circumference. Sometimes a pros- 

 trate trunk three or four feet long would be 

 seen. One pictures an ancient forest very dif- 

 ferent from the grassy plains with occasional 

 clumps of dwarfed and stunted spruce and fir 

 bushes that are here now. 



Professor Fernald was much interested in 



