WOODY MOUNTAINS. 



1!) 



mountain regions as abundant as it is here. Its tall, slender growth, its wide-spread 

 branches with their picturesquely grouped and drooping branchlets, distinguish it 

 amongst the surrounding trees, and render it the most typical of these forests. It is 

 of a darker and bluer green than the two prevailing species of pines. Its straight 

 and strictly cylindrical stem rivals in height as well as in circumference that of the 

 oldest Canadian pines ; it has a pale grey, delicate bark, with regular longitudinal 

 rents, carefully collected by the natives and used in a variety of ways. We also 

 observe here a fir, not essentially differing from the above-mentioned Pinus 



palustris, but attaining a considerable height ^3 0. The fifth conifer of this 



district, named Pinus Sitchensis by Bongard, grows isolated or in groups only in 

 the higher meadows. Such a locality could be introduced in the present " view " 

 solely by availing myself of a poetical licence. The chief feature of this mountain 

 pine principally consists in its numerous little branches, clad with a delicate pale 

 green foliage, not drooping as in most of its congeners, but standing upright, and 

 forming fine horizontal bowers (14, m). In a less marked manner the same trait 

 of character may here and there be seen in the Canadian pine, especially growing 

 in those colder situations in which the present view exhibits it- A specimen 

 projecting little above the water may be regarded as an instance of this variation 



of its growth ^7 | 8 |Q. Of woody plants with deciduous foliage, we notice here 

 only the so-called white alder, forming colossal shrubs close to the water ^6 



Several species of Vaccinece attain in such places no less conspicuous dimensions. 

 But in the narrow valleys are growing here and there tall ferns, alternating with 

 Panax horridum and a rather large Heracleum (H. lanatum ?). Generally speaking, 

 this west coast appears to be less poor in umbelliferous plants than the other parts 

 of this continent. The numerous Vaccinece of this district are augmented by a 

 peculiar plant, growing in the colder parts of the forest, and having a very different 

 habit and form of leaf, but flowers closely resembling those of the large kinds of 

 Pyrola. Indeed, it is a shrubby Pyrola, as Dr. Escholz called it when first 



observing it, — the Cladothamnus pyroliflorus, Bong. ^9 ? ^ ! A beautiful Dode- 



catheon with flowers of a carmine colour, merging into blue, abounds amongst the 



grass of the higher meadows ^14 



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