106 THE PLANT WORLD. 
B. C. It was the intention to have made the Yoho Valley the first 
center for work, but snow still filled the passes leading north¬ 
ward and so we were obliged to stop at Emerald Lake. 
The vegetation around us was astonishingly like that of north¬ 
ern Europe. The forests of spruce and pine, larches at higher 
altitudes and unimportant maples and poplars, cryptogams such 
as Lycopodium . complanatum, Botrychium lunaria, Dryopteris 
Filix-mas, and a host of herbaceous genera gave a facies which 
repeatedly called forth from our German member the exclama¬ 
tion, “ ich fiihle mich zu Hause.” 
The forests of the Selkirks are commonly said to greatly sur¬ 
pass those of the Rockies in size of trees and luxuriance of 
growth. Now while a marked difference indeed exists between 
the western flanks of the former and the eastern slopes of the 
latter it is by no means correct to assume that the dividing line 
between the two mountain systems is also the line of demarcation 
between the regions of large and small trees. This will be made 
clear from the notes of two or three days of a memorable journey 
in July. 
We had started from a point on the upper Columbia, with a 
pack train, to push westward into the Selkirks. Around us was a 
forest exactly like that of the Rockies—mostly pines and spruces, 
as a rule not reaching more than eighteen inches in diameter, with a 
sparse undergrowth. This condition continued for days. A photo¬ 
graph taken after we had covered two thirds of the distance from 
the outskirts to the center of these ranges ‘shows the same small 
trees and a forest floor sufficiently free of undergrowth that over it 
a horse might gallop. But one morning as we were approaching 
the very center, a change suddenly became manifest. Arbor vitae 
and hemlock began to appear, all the trees shot skyward and 
among them were individuals of noble girth. A vigorous growth 
of bushes and weeds cut off all view and we pushed our way 
among bracken and spleenwort ferns nearly as tall as ourselves. 
Near the streams almost impenetrable growths of alder and willow 
made us the more clearly realize that we had passed into a new 
zone. Later we found, still farther westward, arbor vitae of a 
circumference of twenty-five and thirty feet. 
