@ BY FRED PERRY

Some Rare Plants of British Columbia

LTHOUGH the Common or ordinary Cow Parsnip is plentiful in British
Columbia, there is a close relative, the Giant Cow Parsnip which is
quite rare. I do not find it recorded in any of the Flora which I have

consulted, which deal with our local plants and flowers.

It occurs in our own immediate locality: there is a specimen near our
doorstep in North Vancouver, at the east end of 26th Street. Just recently,
too, we noticed others on the vacant block on the eastern side of Lonsdale
Avenue, immediately south of 25th Street.

Here, in North Vancouver, our local representatives reach a height of
from 10 to 12 feet. In giving a description of it, I cannot do better than
to quote from the writings of that great Naturalist, Steller, who was the first
white man to visit Alaska, in 1741, when he found it well represented there.
“This plant,” he writes, “which is a native of Kamchatka and near-by Bering
Island, grows to gigantic proportions, especially in its native habitat, where,
in suitable locations near sea level, it covers large tracts, forming in places
impenetrable thickets.”

He describes at some length, its economic importance to the inhabitants
there as a source of sweetening, it being commonly used by them as a sub-
stitute for sugar, and has left us a description of the custom of the Kamchatdal
women in collecting large quantities of it in July of each year, which they
prepare for their usé in various ways. The hollow stalks are cleaned out, and
the rinds are carefully scraped off with mussel-shells, then tied in bundles and
hung in the sun to dry. Soon, a sweet juice exudes, and in a few days this
forms into a white powder, which, having been scraped off is used as we use
sugar. Today the natives use it in many other ways: at times the stalks are
given to children to chew, in order to keep them from crying; at other times
the stalks having been steeped for some time in water, are consumed with
other food for their nutrition. -

When the Cossacks arrived to settle in Kamchatka, they soon discovered
an easy way to distil an intoxicating liquor from the juice; the effect, how-
ever, was anything but pleasant. The method of distillation is described by
Steller for us, which though rather primitive, was evidently very efficacious.
He considered it to be markedly injurious to them. He writes: “The people
become intoxicated very quickly, and when drunk are completely crazed,
and entirely out of their senses. Their faces become quite blue.”

Our local representative, the Giant Cow Parsley is known under the
botanical name of Heracleum lanatum, Mich., Var. Gigantea.

Quite different is another of our local plants: a lowly member of the Moss
Heather family. It, too, was discovered in Kamchatka by Steller, and in
tribute to him it has received the botanical name of Cassiope Stelleriana, D.C.
Its leaves are extremely small and its flowers have a rosy tinged calyx.
Linked as it is with the name of the celebrated Steller, it has fittingly
immortalized the memory of the noted Naturalist. The first part of its
botanical name is thought by some to be rather unfortunate, for various
competent botanists have included its classification in six different genera:
Andromeda, Erica, Bryanthus, Menziesia, Harrimanella and Cassiope.

It has been recorded from Beaver Mt., Hope, and from Mt. Tomahii.

A very uncommon cruciferous plant, that is, one which bears its four
petals in the form of a cross, known as Smelowskia Americana Rydb, is
recorded from the heights of Tulameen Mountain. It has a few racemes of
white flowers with very dark-brown stamens, which give the flowers a
striking contrasting beauty of dark and light effect. Although we have made
diligent search for the reason of its botanical name, none of the Floras which

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