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INTRODUCTORY
THE plants named in the
following notes were collected at many localities on the coasts of Alaska
and Siberia, and on St. Lawrence, Wrangell, and Herald Islands, between
about latitude 54° and 71º N., longitude 161° and 178° W., in the course of
short excursions, some of them less than an hour in length. Inasmuch as the
flora of the arctic and subarctic regions is nearly the same everywhere, the
discovery of many species new to science was not to be expected. The
collection, however, will no doubt be valuable for comparison with the
plants of other regions. In general the physiognomy of the vegetation of the
polar regions resembles that of the alpine valleys of the temperate zones;
so much so that the botanist on the coast of Arctic Siberia or America might
readily fancy himself on the Sierra Nevada at a height of ten to twelve
thousand feet above the sea.
There is no line of perpetual
snow on any portion of the Arctic regions known to explorers. The snow
disappears every summer, not only from the low, sandy shores and boggy
tundras, but also from the tops of the mountains, and all the upper slopes
and valleys with the exception of small patches of drifts and
avalanche-heaps hardly noticeable in general views. But though nowhere
excessively deep or permanent, the snow-mantle is universal during winter,
and the plants are solidly frozen and buried for nearly three fourths of the
year. In this condition they enjoy a sleep and rest about as profound as
death, from which they awake in the months of June and July in vigorous
health, and speedily reach a far higher development of leaf and flower and
fruit than is generally supposed. On the drier banks and hills about
Kotzebue Sound, Cape Thompson, and Cape Lisburne, many species show but
little climatic repression, and during the long summer days grow tall enough
to wave in the wind, and unfold flowers in as rich profusion and as highly
colored as may be found in regions lying a thousand miles farther south.
UNALASKA
To the botanist approaching
any portion of the Aleutian chain of islands from the southward during the
winter or spring months, the view is severely desolate and forbidding. The
snow comes down to the water's edge in solid white, interrupted only by
dark, outstanding bluffs with faces too steep for snow to lie on, and by the
backs of rounded rocks and long, rugged reefs beaten and overswept by heavy
breakers rolling in from the Pacific, while throughout nearly every month of
the year the higher mountains are wrapped in gloomy, dripping storm-clouds.
Nevertheless, vegetation here
is remarkably close and luxuriant, and crowded with showy bloom, covering
almost every foot of the ground up to a height of about a thousand feet
above the sea - the harsh trachytic rocks, and even the cindery bases of the
craters, as well as the moraines and rough soil-beds outspread on the low
portions of the short, narrow valleys.
On the twentieth of May we
found the showy Geurn glaciale already in flower, also an aretostaphylos and
draba, on a slope facing the south, near the harbor of Unalaska. The
willows, too, were then beginning to put forth their catkins, while a
multitude of green points were springing up in sheltered spots wherever the
snow had vanished. At a height of four or five hundred feet, however, winter
was still unbroken, with scarce a memory of the rich bloom of summer.
During a few short excursions
along the shores of Unalaska Harbor, and on two of the adjacent mountains,
towards the end of May and the beginning of October, we saw about fifty
species of flowering plants - empetrum, vaccinium, bryanthus, pyrola,
arctostaphylos, ledum, cassiope, lupinus, geranium, epilobium, silene, draba,
and saxifraga, being the most telling and characteristic of the genera
represented. Empetrum nigrum, a bryanthus, and three species of vaccinium
make a grand display when in flower, and show their massed colors at a
considerable distance.
Almost the entire surface of
the valleys and hills and lower slopes of the mountains is covered with a
dense, spongy plush of lichens and mosses similar to that which covers the
tundras of the Arctic regions, making a rich green mantle on which the
showy, flowering plants are strikingly relieved, though these grow far more
luxuriantly on the banks of the streams where the drainage is less
interrupted. Here also the ferns, of which I saw three species, are taller
and more abundant, some of them arching their broad, delicate fronds over
one's shoulders, while in similar situations the tallest of the five grasses
that were seen reaches a height of nearly six feet, and forms a growth close
enough for the farmer's scythe.
Not a single tree has been
seen on any of the islands of the chain west of Kodiak, excepting a few
spruces brought from Sitka and planted at Unalaska by the Russians about
fifty years ago. They are still alive in a dwarfed condition, having made
scarce any appreciable growth since they were planted. These facts are the
more remarkable, since in southeastern Alaska, lying both to the north and
south of here, and on the many islands of the Alexander Archipelago, as well
as on the mainland, forests of beautiful conifers flourish exuberantly and
attain noble dimensions, while the climatic conditions generally do not
appear to differ greatly from those that obtain on these treeless islands.
Wherever cattle have been
introduced they have prospered and grown fat on the abundance of rich
nutritious pasturage to be found almost everywhere in the deep, withdrawing
valleys and on the green slopes of the hills and mountains, but the wetness
of the summer months will always prevent the making of hay in any
considerable quantities.
The agricultural
possibilities of these islands seem also to be very limited. The hardier of
the cereals - rye, barley, and oats - make a good, vigorous growth, and head
out, but seldom or never mature, on account of insufficient sunshine and
overabundance of moisture in the form of long-continued, drizzling fogs and
rains. Green crops, however, as potatoes, turnips, cabbages, beets, and most
other common garden vegetables, thrive wherever the ground is thoroughly
drained and has a southerly exposure.
ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND
St. Lawrence Island, as far
as our observations extended, is mostly a dreary mass of granite and lava of
various forms and colors, roughened with volcanic cones, covered with snow,
and rigidly bound in ocean ice for half the year. Inasmuch as it lies
broadsidewise to the direction pursued by the great ice-sheet that recently
filled Bering Sea, and its rocks offered unequal resistance to the denuding
action of the ice, the island is traversed by numerous ridges and low,
gap-like valleys all trending in the same general direction. Some of the
lowest of these transverse valleys have been degraded nearly to the level of
the sea, showing that if the glaciation to which the island has been
subjected had been slightly greater, we should have found several islands
here instead of one.
At the time of our first
visit, May 28, winter still had full possession, but eleven days later we
found the dwarf willows, drabas, erigerons, and saxifrages pushing up their
buds and leaves, on spots bare of snow, with wonderful rapidity. This was
the beginning of spring at the northwest end of the island. On July 4 the
flora seemed to have reached its highest development. The bottoms of the
glacial valleys were in many places covered with tall grasses and earices
evenly planted and forming meadows of considerable size, while the drier
portions and the sloping grounds about them were enlivened with gay, highly
colored flowers from an inch to nearly two feet in height, such as Aconitum
Napellus, L., var. deiphinifolium, Ser., Polemonium ca!ruleum, L., Pa paver
nudicaule, L., Draba alpina, L., and Silene acaulis, L., in large, closely
flowered tufts, as well as andromeda, ledum, linna, cassiope, and several
species of vaccinium and saxifraga.
ST. MICHAEL
The region about St. Michael
is a magnificent tundra, crowded with Arctic lichens and mosses, which here
develop under most favorable conditions. In the spongy plush formed by the
lower plants, in which one sinks almost knee-deep at every step, there is a
sparse growth of grasses, carices, and rushes, tall enough to wave in the
wind, while empetrum, the dwarf birch, and the various heathworts flourish
here in all their beauty of bright leaves and flowers. The moss mantle for
the most part rests on a stratum of ice that never melts to any great
extent, and the ice on a bed rock of black vesicular lava. Ridges of the
lava rise here and there above the general level in rough masses, affording
ground for plants that like a drier soil. Numerous hollows and watercourses
also occur on the general tundra, whose well-drained banks are decked with
gay flowers in lavish abundance, and meadow patches of grasses
shoulder-high, suggestive of regions much farther south.
The following plants and a
few doubtful species not yet determined were collected here: -
GOLOFNIN BAY
The tundra flora on the west
side of Golofnin Bay is remarkably close and luxuriant, covering almost
every foot of the ground, the hills as well as the valleys, while the sandy
beach and a bank of coarsely stratified moraine material a few yards back
from the beach were blooming like a garden with Lathyrus maritimus, Iris
sibirica, Polemonium coruleum, etc., diversified with clumps and patches of
Elymus arenarius, Alnu.s viridis, and Abies alba.
This is one of the few points
on the east side of Bering Sea where trees closely approach the shore. The
white spruce occurs here in small groves or thickets of well-developed,
erect trees fifteen or twenty feet high, near the level of the sea, at a
distance of about six or eight miles from the mouth of the bay, and
gradually becomes irregularand dwarfed as it approaches the shore. here a
number of dead and dying specimens were observed, indicating that conditions
of soil, climate, and relations to other plants were becoming more
unfavorable, and causing the tree-line to recede from the coast.
The following collection was
made here July 10:-
KOTZEBUE SOUND
The flora of the region about
the head of Kotzebue Sound is hardly less luxuriant and rich in species than
that of other points, visited by the Corwin, lying several degrees farther
south. Fine nutritious grasses suitable for the fattening of cattle, and
from two to six feet high, are not of rare occurrence on meadows of
considerable extent, and along stream- banks wherever the stagnant waters of
the tundra have been drained off, while in similar localities the most showy
of the arctic plants bloom in all their freshness and beauty, manifesting no
sign of frost, or unfavorable conditions of any kind whatever.
A striking result of the
airing and draining of the boggy tundra soil is shown on the ice-bluffs
around Eschscholtz Bay, where it has been undermined by the melting of the
ice on which it rests. In falling down the face of the ice-wall it is well
shaken and rolled before it again comes to rest on terraced or gently
sloping portions of the wall. The original vegetation of the tundra is thus
destroyed, and tall grasses spring up on the fresh, mellow ground as it
accumulates from time to time, growing lush and rank, though in many places
that we noted these new soil-beds are not more than a foot in depth, and lie
on the solid ice.
At the time of our last visit
to this interesting region, about the middle of September, the weather was
still fine, suggesting the Indian summer of the Western States. The tundra
glowed in the mellow sunshine with the colors of the ripe foliage of
vaccinium, empetrum, arctostaphylos, and dwarf birch; red, purple, and
yellow, in pure bright tones, while the berries, hardly less beautiful, were
scattered everywhere as if they had been sown broadcast with a lavish hand,
the whole blending harmoniously with the neutral tints of the furred bed of
lichens and mosses on which the bright leaves and berries were painted.
On several points about the
sound the white spruce occurs in small, compact groves within a few miles of
the shore; and pyrola, which belongs to wooded regions, is abundant where no
trees are now in sight, tending to show that areas of considerable extont,
now treeless, were once forested.
The plants collected are: -
CAPE THOMPSON
The Cape Thompson flora is
richer in species and individuals than that of any other point on the Arctic
shores we have seen, owing no doubt mainly to the better drainage of the
ground through the fissured frost-cracked limestone, which hereabouts is the
principal rock.
Where the hill-slopes are
steepest the rock frequently occurs in loose, angular masses, and is
entirely bare of soil. But between these barren slopes there are valleys
where the showiest of the Arctic plants bloom in rich profusion and variety,
forming brilliant masses of color - purple, yellow, and blue - where certain
species form beds of considerable size, almost to the exclusion of others.
The following list was
obtained here July 19: -
PLOVER BAY, SIBERIA
The mountains bounding the
glacial fiord called Plover Bay, though beautiful in their combinations of
curves and peaks as they are seen touching each other delicately and rising
in bold, picturesque groups, are nevertheless severely desolate-looking from
the absence of trees and large shrubs, and indeed of vegetation of any kind
dense enough to give color in telling quantities, or to soften the harsh
rockiness of the steepest portions of the walls. Even the valleys opening
back from the water here and there on either side are mostly bare as seen at
a distance of a mile or two, and show only a faint tinge of green, derived
from dwarf willows, heath- worts, and sedges chiefly.
The most interesting of the
plants found here are Rhododendron kamtschaticuin, Pall., and the handsome
blue-flowered Saxifraga oppositifolia, L., both of which are abundant.
The following were collected
July 12 and August 26: -
HERALD ISLAND
On Herald Island the common
polar cryptogamous vegetation is well represented and developed. So also are
the flowering plants, almost the entire surface of the island, with the
exception of the sheer, crumbling bluffs along the shores, being quite
tellingly dotted and tufted with characteristic species. The following list
[I Berthold Seemanu, botanist of 1I.M.S. Herald in 1849, reported the
finding of eight plants on a width of thirty feet of shore, which, he says,
was the whole extent we had to walk over." The plants were the following:
Artemisia borealis, Cochieria fenestrata, Saxifraga lamentinsama, Poe
arcilca, and another undetermined grass, Hepatica, a moss, and red lichen
covering the rocks. [Eorroa.]] was obtained: -
WRANGELL LAND
Our stay on the one point of
Wrangell Land that we touched was far too short to admit of making anything
like as full a collection of the plants of so interesting a region as was
desirable. We found the rock formation where we landed and for some distance
along the coast to the eastward and westward to be a close-grained clay
slate, cleaving freely into thin flakes, with here and there a few compact,
metamorphic masses that rise above the general surface. Where it is exposed
along the shore bluffs and kept bare of vegetation and soil by the action of
the ocean, ice, and heavy snow-drifts, the rock presents a surface about as
black as coal, without even a moss or lichen to enliven its somber gloom.
But when this dreary barrier is passed the surface features of the country
in general are found to be finely moulded and collocated, smooth valleys,
wide as compared with their depth, trending back from the shore to a range
of mountains that appear blue in the distance, and round-topped hills, with
their side curves finely drawn, touching and blending in beautiful groups,
while scarce a single rock-pile is seen or sheer-walled bluff to break the
general smoothness.
The soil has evidently been
derived mostly from the underlying slates, though a few fragmentary wasting
moraines were observed, containing traveled boulders of quartz and granite
which doubtless were brought from the mountains of the interior by glaciers
that have recently vanished - so recently that the outlines and sculptured
hollows and grooves of the mountains have not as yet suffered sufficient
post-glacial denudation to mar appreciably their glacial characters.
The banks of the river at the
mouth of which we landed presented a striking contrast as to vegetation to
that of any other stream we had seen in the Arctic regions. The tundra
vegetation was not wholly absent, but the mosses and lichens of which it is
elsewhere composed are about as feebly developed as possible, and instead of
forming a continuous covering they occur in small separate tufts, leaving
the ground between them raw and bare as that of a newly ploughed field. The
phanerogamous plants, both on the lowest grounds and on the slopes and
hilltops as far as seen, were in the same severely repressed condition, and
as sparsely planted in tufts an inch or two in diameter, with from one to
three feet of naked soil between them. Some portions of the coast, however,
farther south, presented a greenish hue as seen from the ship at a distance
of eight or ten miles, owing no doubt to vegetation growing under less
unfavorable conditions.
From an area of about half a
square mile the following plants were collected: -
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