WOODY MOUNTAINS. 



63 



the berries of our Mountain Ash ; on the whole of rather a good flavour, they 

 easily dry up when preserved, and are therefore, like the rose-apples, more sought 

 after by bears, sables, &c, than men. At about 1000 feet height these thickets 

 are no longer seen, but the more common are the other two, one consisting of an 



Alder, Alnus incana, Cham. (11 — J, the other, of the so-called " Kedrownik" 



forms of all three the most extensive thickets ; it commences even at a low 

 elevation, alternating with those of the others, but at about 2000 to 3000 feet 

 it alone remains, surrounded by an Alpine flora, bare rocks, and perpetual snow ; 

 and there is in all the higher mountains of the peninsula a region in which the 

 soil is exclusively covered by it. The pine growing more isolated about the coast 

 is here only a shrub, and the higher one ascends the more extensive become the 

 thickets it constitutes. As long as its fruits are fresh the seeds can be eaten raw ; 

 they taste rather resinous, but aromatic, are a little larger than peas, of good 

 flavour, and a thin but, in a dry state, hard dark-brown skin ; they are eaten like 

 almonds, and much esteemed in Kamtschatka. These fruits are the principal food 

 of sables during the winter, of bears during the autumn. The soil of the light 

 forest of birches represented in our illustration, between the above-mentioned 

 thickets, is clad with grass of no great height and isolated shrubs of the two 

 Loniceras and one of the Eoses alluded to, characterised by its rather larger 

 spiny fruits, which are of a better flavour than those of the others, provided they 

 have not become soft by night frosts. Amongst the herbs in the foreground pre- 

 dominate about this season an Aconitum (11 o), a Cimicifuga (9 o), a Cacalia 

 with very broad leaves (10 p), a tall Artemisia, and a very fine thistle without 

 spines (12 o), which is said to occur also in Siberia, and is a favourite fodder of 

 the horses of jakutic descent. There is also the Ejpilobium angustifolium 



the domestic economy of the Kamtschadales, a part of its stem being pre- 

 served as an antiscorbutic dish during the winter. Except a species of Clematis 

 (13 o), of which there is a specimen on the foot of the willow stem, there seems 

 to be no creepers in Kamtschatka. 



by most botanists considered 



The Alder 



attained its full height, and plays an important part in 



