MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
193 
CAR-WINDOW NOTES ON 
THE VEGETATION 
OF THE UPPER 
PENINSULA. 
BY ROLAND M. HARPER. 
Iii the summer of 1912, while occupying the position of research as- 
sistant in botany at the Biological Station of the University of Michi- 
gan, in Cheboygan County, I took a few days off for a trip across the 
upper peninsula, in order to make some comparisons between the vegeta- 
tion fifty or more miles north of the station with that to the southward 
which I had already seen. 
Landing at St. Ignace on the morning of August 3d, I went across to 
Sau It Ste. Marie by the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic By., turning 
an acute angle at Soo Junction, 43 miles from St. Ignace and 47 from 
“the Soo.” Three days later I came back by the Minneapolis, St. Paul 
and Sault Ste. Marie Ry. to Trout Lake, a distance of 45 miles, and 
from there (after dark) by the same route as before to St. Ignace and 
the Lower Peninsula. This gave me a view of 135 miles of the Upper 
Peninsula, all in Mackinac and Chippewa Counties except a mile or 
two on either side of Soo Junction, which is in Luce. Very little botani- 
cal work seems to have been done in these counties, if one may judge 
from the infrequency with which they are mentioned in Beal’s Michigan 
Flora (1904). 
The vegetation types of the region traversed are shown with remark- 
able accuracy, though necessarily somewhat generalized on account of 
the small scale used, on the map of the Upper Peninsula in Dr. Charles 
A. Davis’s report on peat (Rep. Geol. Surv. Mich. 1900, pi. 17. 1907), 
which is one of the best vegetation maps for an area of that size ever 
published. The surface geology of the same area is shown in an equally 
satisfactory manner on a colored map by Frank Leverett, drawn in 1911 
and distributed in July, 1912.* Consequently it is unnecessary to give 
more than a brief and superficial description of the country here. 
Between St. Ignace and Trout Lake, especially in the first few miles, 
outcrops of limestone are not infrequent; but they seem to have very, 
little effect on the vegetation. f Elsewhere on the route the rocks are 
covered deeply by sand and clay mixed in various proportions, and in 
many places peat. Bogs, swamps and marshes abound, especially in the 
neighborhood of Soo Junction, indicating that the ground-water stands 
within a few feet of the surface, and does not fluctuate much with the 
seasons. 
The country is comparatively level all the way, or at least not at all 
*Tliis map (loos not seem to have yet been included in any printed report, hut it is a 
companion to the map of the Lower Peninsula hy the same author in Publication !> 
(Geological Series 7) of the Michigan Geological and Biological Survey, 1012. 
f Nearly all the correlations between vegetation and mineral constituents of the soil — - 
particularly limestone, which is one of tin' most widely distributed and easily identified — - 
which have been published have been made in temperate and moderately humid climates, 
in this country especially in Kentucky, Tennessee. Alabama and Mississippi. In cold, hot 
and arid climates such correlations are either less obvious or at least have been made 
much less frequently. 
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