21 
Secondary spp.: Equisetum sylvaticum 
E. scirpoides 
Lycopodium annotinum 
Maianthemum canadense 
Goodyera repens var. ophioides 
Habenaria obtusata 
Orchis rotundijolia 
C orallorrhiza triflda 
Calypso borealis 
Betula papyrijera var. neoalaskana 
Alnus crisya 
Geocaidon lividum 
Ribes lacustre 
R. triste 
Mitella nuda 
Rosa acicularis 
Shepherdia canadensis 
Cornus canadensis 
Arctostaphylos rubra 
Pyrola asarijolia 
P. asarijolia var. incanmata 
P. chlorantha 
P. secunda 
Moneses uni flora 
Linnaea borealis var. americana 
Peltigera aphthosa 
The secondary 1 species are much scattered in their distribution. In 
places it is possible to walk a hundred yards or more without seeing any 
other ground cover than the mosses. The absence of many species that 
are widespread in the Canadian forests elsewhere has been noted by the 
writer in another place (53) . If undisturbed by fire or clearing the spruce 
timber seems to perpetuate itself and to be the most advanced form of 
mesophytism the region affords. However, due probably to a slow rate 
of soil development and the short time available since much of the country 
was exposed for the immigration of plants, such species of the more meso- 
phytic forests of Ontario, British Cohimbia, or even of parts of Alaska, as 
Habenaria orbiculata, Goodyera, decipiens, Listera cordata, Cypripedium 
parviflorum , Lycopodium lucidulum, Circaea alpina, and others, are either 
entirely absent from the forests under discussion, or are extremely localized 
in them. 
The spruce timber is found chiefly on soils of medium drainage, which 
usually occur on the lower slopes of hills and in hollows where there is 
sufficient drainage to prevent the formation of muskegs. Such conditions 
are most abundant in the sandy, morainic country that extends from a 
point a few miles north of Peace point northward and northwestward 
beyond Little Buffalo river. They are probably common also in the 
northern area of the park between Little Buffalo river and Buffalo lake, 
and also in the morainic country that crosses Jackfish river south of 
Moose Lake basin. Parts of the eastern slopes of Caribou mountains 
are covered with a dense spruce forest, much of which is of small trees with 
an unusually scanty undergrowth. 
The lodgepole pine Pinus contorta var. latifolia timber on the 
summits of Caribou Mountain plateau has not been studied extensively. 
1 Lists of secondary species will include only ferns and flowering plants, with the exception of a few 
species of mosses or lichens that are particularly characteristic of the habitats in question. 
