62 



PLATE XXL 



KAMTSCHATKA. 



WOODY MOUNTAINS. 



August. 



The character predominating on the whole eastern side of the country is here 

 exhibited, beginning immediately above the steep walls forming the coast, and 

 being repeated in its chief features in all the mountainous districts within the 

 limits of the forests. The Betula Ermanni is the principal tree of these generally 

 light forests. Those numerous thickets of willows and shrubby Spirceas charac- 

 teristic of the valleys, are not observed on the summits of the moderate heights, 

 on ground as that here represented, which may be perhaps 500 feet above the 

 level of the neighbouring ocean. Even much higher the same character may be 

 presupposed. On these heights one meets everywhere amongst birches isolated 

 specimen r willows with tall stems (Salix cuprea?) (13 1), and possessing a 

 slender habit and rather thin foliage. With the increasing altitude the thickets of 

 underwood characteristic of these mountain forests assume greater dimensions, the 

 birches alternating with them gradually become scarcer and of lesser height, until 

 they disappear altogether, and make room for low thickets, to struggle against the 

 Alpine flora, and be again displaced by it in the same manner as the birch forests 

 have been displaced by them. As a rule these thickets are impenetrable to man, 

 and remind us by their habit very much of those of the shrubby pines of the 

 higher mountains of central Europe. In Kamtschatka they are, as our illustration 

 shows, of a three-fold form. In the lowest districts those predominate which consist 



of Pyrus sambucifolia, Cham. ^3 0, a plant known by the Russian name 



u Rybina " (Mountain Ash) ; indeed, its leaves so closely resemble those of Sorbus 

 aucuparia, that at first sight one is inclined to consider it a shrubby variety of 

 the same. But its vermilion-coloured fruits have not the bitter taste peculiar to 



