The only suggestion of a tree[91] found growing on the Pribylov group is the hardy “talneek” or creeping willow; there are three species of the genus _Salix_ found here, viz., _reticulata_, _polaris_, and _arctica_; the first named is the most common and of largest growth; it progresses exactly as a cucumber-vine does in our gardens; as soon as it has made from the seed a growth of six inches or a foot upright from the soil, then it droops over and crawls along prostrate upon the earth, rocks, and sphagnum; some of the largest talneek trunks will measure eight or ten feet in decumbent length along the ground, and are as large around the stump as an average wrist of man. The usual size, however, is very, very much less; while the stems of _polaris_ and _arctica_ scarcely ever reach the diameter of a pencil case, or the procumbent length of two feet. Although _Rubus chamæmorus_ is a tree-shrub, and is found here very commonly distributed, yet it grows such a slender diminutive bush, that it gives no thought whatever of its being anything of the sort. Herbs, grasses, and ferns tower above it on all sides. The fungoid growths on the Pribylov Islands are abundant and varied, especially in and around the vicinity of the rookeries and the killing-grounds. On the west slope of the Black bluffs at St. Paul the mushroom, _Agaricus campestris_, was gathered in the season of 1872 by the natives, and eaten by one or two families in the village, who had learned to cook them nicely from the Russians. These Seal Island mushrooms have deeper tones of pink and purple-red in their gills than do those of my gathering in the States. I kicked over many large spherical “puff-balls” (_Lycoperdæ_) in my tundra walks; myriads of smaller ones (_Lycoperdon cinereum?_) cover patches near the spots where carcasses have long since rotted, together with a pale gray fungus (_Agaricus fimiputris_), exceedingly delicate and frosted exquisitely. Some ligneous fungi (_Clavaria_), will be found attached to the decaying stems of _Salix reticulata_ (creeping willows). The irregularity of the annual growing of the agarics, and their rapid growth when they do appear, makes their determination excessively difficult; they are as unstable in their visits as are several of the _Lepidoptera_. The cool humidity of climate during the summer season on the Pribylov Islands is especially adapted to that mysterious, but beautiful growth of these plants—the apotheosis of decay. The coloring of several varieties is very bright and attractive, shading from a purplish-scarlet to a pallid white.