-76- 



and integrata var. sorediosa, apart from the difference in distribution, the anatomy 

 of the thallus and the darker coloration of the under side would serve as a dis- 

 tinction. 



Wellesley College, 

 Wellesley, Massachusetts 



PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE LICHENS OF WHATCOM COUNTY, 



WASHINGTON 1 



A. C. Herre 



Whatcom County occupies the northern one of the northwest corners of 

 the United States, as the state of Washington has what one might well call two 

 northwest corners. This is due to the folding of the international boundary 

 which turns southward from the 49th parallel to the strait of Juan de Fuca and 

 then westerly to the Pacific. The county, which has a length of about 90 miles 

 with a north and south breadth of 25 miles, has an area of 2226 square miles. 



Excluding Lummi Island which lies just off the southwest corner of the 

 county and which attains a height of about 1800 feet, the county is all on the 

 mainland. It divides naturally into two physiographic provinces; the western 

 fourth is largely a forest covered plain, consisting of the valleys of the Nooksack 

 and Sumas rivers and the rolling uplands between them and southward, much 

 of it less than 100 feet above sea level. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf 

 of Georgia and Puget Sound; the remaining portion of the county lying to the 

 eastward of this region of little elevation is covered by the Cascades. The plain 

 is crossed from east to west by the Nooksack river and its tributaries but in 

 the main the original topography has been greatly altered by glacial action and 

 deposits which destroyed the old drainage, leaving many gravelly eskers, kames, 

 ponds, sphagnum swamps, cranberry marshes, and peat bogs. The western fourth 

 of the county contains all the cleared land and practically all the population. 



The eastern three-fourths is a wild and little visited region of exceedingly 

 rugged mountains which form a maze of irregular ranges. The main divide 

 of the Cascades here has an elevation of between 6000 and 7000 feet and is clad 

 in perpetual snow. Several peaks range from 8000 to 9000 feet in altitude while 

 the mountains culminate in Mt. Baker, a huge volcano 10,780 feet in height. 

 Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan have many large glaciers on their flanks, while a 

 few hundred feet below the dome-like summit of Mt. Baker, at the so-called 

 crater, is a vent from which come sulfurous gases and vapor. 



Excluding the arctic realm of the higher mountains, and the alpine meadows 

 more or less common above 5000 feet, the entire region was originally covered 

 by the typical dense coniferous forest of the Puget Sound Valley. The prin- 

 cipal lumber trees were and still are Pseudotsuga mucronata and Thuya plicata, 

 though the giant trees reaching a height of from 200 to 300 feet have practically 



Presented at the December, 19 16, meeting of the SuUivant Moss Society, New York City. 



