


NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 

BOTANY. 
LAKE SUPERIOR PLANTS COMPARED WITH EASTERN SPECIMENS.— Not 
long ago my attention was called by a friend, a distinguished botanist at 
the East, to the remarkably large and robust development of some of my 
Lake Superior specimens, as compared with the same species of plants 
found in the New England States. This is particularly observable in the 
plants of the earlier part of the season, where one would be led least to 
expeet it. Among the most remarkable are the Carices, most of which 
are in full perfection by the early summer. Of these I would specify 
the reddens a few out of many, as worthy of note in the above res- 
pect:— Carex Backii Boot, C. varia Muhl., in its erae iege C. Hough 
borealis Roem. and Schul.), in flower early in June was over two feet 
high, the leaves, stalk, panicle and its component proportionately 
large. This fragrant grass the Indian women e into baskets and 
fancy articles, which they dispose of to travellers. Kaeh cristata Pers., 
are also worthy of mention as singularly luxuriant. Triticum violaceum 
Hornem., I found on the no rthern shore of the lake, on the few gravel 
beaches, where it attained a height of over four feet, having an extraor- 
dinarily robust culm. The grain was well formed by the latter part of 
and a M that our common Wheat (Triticum vulgare Linn.) is of 
the same us. 
The ndis amount of snow which falls in the region of Lake le 
and lies upon the land, a great warm blanket several feet thick, un 
turbed by the variable temperature which affects other um i — 
is unknown there, eff ectually protects the soil from all fros h 
marked influence on the vegetation. The snow remains till us and d 
it disappears the ground has not the delay of getting thawed out as else- 
where. I have rises found snowdrifts in the woods from one a 
ed, a 
counterbalancing the shortness of the summer. Violets, which I found 
in May ( Viola blanda Willd., V. Selkirkii Pursh., ete.), had evidently been 
blossoming during the winter, which corroborates what an old pe of 
