176 Fernald— Relationships of some American 
the same plants in exposed or alpine situations have the scales 
brown, chestnut, or even nearly black.* On the Pacific slope 
of North America, especially from the Cascade and Coast 
Ranges to the coast of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia 
and Alaska, this tendency is likewise very conspicuous. It is 
well shown in such plants as Carex praticola, Rydb., in the 
Vancouver Island form described as C. pratensis, var. furva, 
Bailey; C. pennsylvanica, in the variety vespertina, Bailey ; 
C. aurea, in the Vancouver plant, and in Suksdorf’s No. 35 
from Falcon Valley, and F. Binn’s material from Port Ludlow, 
Washington; C. /émosa, in the variety stygia, Bailey; C. jilr- 
Jformis, var. latifolia, in the Vancouver plant, and Hall’s No. 
607 from Oregon, Suksdorf’s No. 51 from Klikitat Co., Wash- 
ington, and Geyer’s No. 72 from Oregon ; and C. rostrata, in 
the Vancouver plant, and Piper’s No. 994 from Seattle, and 
Suksdorf’s Nos. 55 and 56 from the Cascade Mts. of Wash- 
ington. The same tendency has likewise been noted in 
Eleocharis and Juncus. Without attempting here a discus- 
sion of the conditions which tend to produce upon our north- 
west coast the darkening of scales or other chartaceous portions 
of plants, it may be suggested that the brown color ordinarily 
seen in the Canoe Birch of Vancouver and the coastal region 
of Washington and British Columbia is perhaps due to the 
same physiological cause. 
Emphasis has likewise been laidt+ upon the great height of 
this northwestern tree as compared with the eastern Betula 
pale-barked B. alba, and since it is often no taller than the 
eastern tree, it seems to the writer hardly worthy special 
recognition, and that the tree was well treated by Professor 
a in the Silva as a local tendency of the white-barked 
ree: => 
Betula alba, var. glutinosa. 
Besides the ordinary Canoe Birch and its brown-barked form 
of the Pacific slope, there are many tendencies of Betula alba 
in America which deserve special comment, <A single tree 
* See, for example, Boott, Ill. ii : : h series 
ii, 218 Fernald, roe, Am. Mead Lon tt ell dete i 
+ Sargent, Silva, 1. c., Bot. Gaz., 1. c. 
, 
+ Lyall, Jour, Linn. Soc., vii, 134. 
