June-September 1879, Expedition to Alaska Image 41

177 [Guessed] better than told purple topped grasses in full flower reached over my head & so did some of the [Carias] & ferns. Asplenium, [Lomuia] was there too & the little [drosera], with its pink [leaves] & delicate white flowers Here too on the margin of the meadow [nearest] the woods I found the wild apple tree but no fruit for the first time since coming to this coast. The Inds [Indians] gather the apples & some of the more enterprising settlers of this cold wild region graft upon it. [Most] The exuberance—the rich lush growth of grasses ferns & bushes & sedges covering this boggy meadow can hardly be conceived of so high a latitude—I never saw a richer more profuse a meadow growth anywhere. The forest is composed mainly of hemlock & [Menzies] Spruce the [ ] [ ] the most abundant on the drier 178 ground I noticed only one species of the cypress. Cupressus [nootkatensis] or yellow cedar. It is a large tree quite abundant in Alaska & makes excellent lumber. Yellow fragrant & fine-grained making a [favorite] finishing wood in house building & is I believe also a good ship wood. A few pines stood out along the meadow edge p [pinus] [contorta] some of them nearly 100 ft high draped with gray usnea & the bark also gray with scale [lichen] On our return we met the rest of our party Chinamen squaws little Dick & all excepting only the small lass the dancer In their bright colors they made a lively picture. Scattered in the shaggy wilderness [buding] [among] the huckleberry bushes. They [ ] up an incessant shouting & laughing as if the berries they were gathering & the day & the place werehttps://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2370/thumbnail.jp