58 



KAMTSCHATKA. 



ground is a species of Prunus (P. Padus ?) with cylindrical bunches of flowers ; 

 its purplish-black fruit, about the size of a pea, is termed (i Scheromka " by the 

 Kussians, and very much esteemed. It has rather an astringent taste, and is 

 generally eaten after the seeds have been pounded. Of the taller forest trees we 

 have first the Kamtschatkan poplar (3 | 4 b), which bears a great resemblance to 

 the European Populus balsamifera, but it is distinguished by its stately habit and 

 its straight stems with a rough deeply furrowed bark. The tree has this habit 

 chiefly about the Eiver Awatscha and the Upper and Central Kamtschatka. The 

 vicinity of the latter seems to be its real home ; it there grows gregariously over 

 whole districts, and as a prevailing forest tree. Near the sea I have only seen low 

 and crippled specimens, and that on the eastern as well as on the western side of the 

 peninsula.* The wood of these fine straight stems is yellowish-white and soft ; it 

 is used in the construction of Kamtschatkan vessels, or for building houses, because 

 other straight beams may not be at hand, but it is considered to have very little 

 durability. The forest in the background consists everywhere of Betula alba, widely 

 diffused on the Upper and Central Kamtschatka Kiver. It gives place so abruptly 

 and decidedly to the above-named Betula Ermanni, that, for instance, on the road 

 from Ganal to Puschtschina, the vicinity of the Kamtschatka, in that locality still 

 a little river, may at once be discovered by the aspect of the forest suddenly 

 formed by Betula alba, instead of Betula Ermanni as on the coast. Lower down, 

 near Klutschefskaja Sopka, the latter reappears. It is distinguished by its straight 

 and regularly cylindrical stem, which principally flourishes in the central Kamts- 

 chatka districts ; where also those numerous vessels of birch bark are manufactured, 

 so much used in the country, and for which only the bark of perfectly straight 

 stems is selected, which have to be felled for this purpose generally in July or the 

 beginning of August. f 



* During my stay in Awatscha Bay I did not " Journal of Botany and Kew Miscellany," vol. i. p. 



meet with any specimens of this poplar in a wild 144 ; vol. ii. p. 151 ; and "Narrative of the Voyage 



state. In the garden of the Governor of Petropaul- of H. M. S. Herald," vol. ii. p. 6. — Berthold Seernann. 



owsky, near Behring's monument, there is an avenue f One of these vessels I have placed in the 



of these trees, named Populus balsamifera, in Museum of the Koyal Botanic Gardens at Kew. 



Hooker and Arnott's Beechey's Botany. See also I was told their name was " Tujes." — Berthold 



my description of Awatscha Bay, in Hooker's Seernann. 



