132 Rhodora [JuLy 
nips on the river flats we felt like mere pygmies with the latter plants 
stretching high above our heads. Surely if farming is ever to succeed 
in Newfoundland, where people have lived for three centuries without 
seriously attempting it, this is the region which should take the lead — 
a valley with deep limestone alluvium, with a native vegetation 
similar to that of “the Aroostook, the Garden of Maine,’ lying in 
nearly the same latitude and shut in by hills sufficiently high to afford 
considerable protection from the bleaker winds. Messrs. Dodd and 
Paulett, the energetic proprietors of the ill-fated Log Cabin at Spruce 
Brook (burned during the winter of 1909-10, then rebuilt and burned 
again last summer) have already demonstrated that this soil will 
yield wonderful crops, and of all the regions seen by us it seemed the 
one best worth developing. Many plants common to this region 
and northern Maine were seen, Cypripedium hirsutum, Eupatorium 
purpureum, var. foliosum, Cystopteris bulbifera, Trisetum melicordes; 
and commonest of all Carices in the valley, Carex flava, var. gas 
Fernald, first found in the Gaspé Peninsula but later in the rich valley 
of the Meduxnakeag in Aroostook County.! On the gravelly beach 
of St. George’s Pond, as well as along Harry’s River, the handsome 
Epilobium latifolium L., was abundant, and at several points we saw 
the Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, which had spread from the wild 
garden at Spruce Brook and, Mr. Paulett informed us, has now 
established itself for five miles around, as it did long ago on the north- 
western coast of America. 
Leaving the new collections with Kittredge to care for Wiegand 
and I went back to the Blomidon tablelands (plate 87, fig. 3). The 
first day and a half were devoted to the serpentine area, where we 
followed up many strange plants which still await critical study. 
Juniperus communis, var. montana, common everywhere on the 
island, was now in fully mature fruit and conspicuous for the large 
size of the berries. Drosera linearis was abundant about some of the 
shallow pools; and we were suddenly struck with the fact that the 
only fern on the serpentine besides the everywhere abundant Adian- 
tum pedatum, var. aleuticum was Osmunda regalis, a species we had 
observed hardly anywhere else on the island, though others have 
found it in the more sterile sections. But here the plants were any- 
thing but regal, 1.5 to 3 dm. high, with the very short oblong pinnules 
1 See Ruopora, xii. 115 (1910). 
