li H. G. SIMMONS. L SEG - ARCT. EXP. FRAM 



if doubts are not to arise in the mind of one who has had opportunities 

 of forming a tolerably well-based opinion about the flora of those regions. 

 The fir-t li-t of the plants collected during the expedition, is given in 

 NARES. Narrative, where OLIVER has enumerated the flowering plants 

 1 1 oi M Ellesmereland, and J. D. HOOKER has given some notes about the 

 relations and peculiarities of the flora, to which I shall have to come 

 I 'Mi -k later on. Afterwards HART himself gave a detailed record of the 

 flora. \\ilh accounts about the distribution of each separate species 

 (But. Br. Pol. Exp.). He also gives some notes about the vegetation of 

 tin- places visited, beginning with some Danish Greenland ports and 

 further on Gape York and Foulke Fjord which latter is represented as 

 "this most interesting of all our havens". I can fully agree with him 

 in this view, as also in his conjecture that more remains to be found 

 there, notwithstanding the Foulke Fjord list has now, after my two short 

 excursions at the place, become by far the largest of any N. W. Green- 

 land district of the same extent. 



Further to the north HART visited Hannah Island and Bessels Bav. 



j 



Among the plants from the latter locality he especially mentions Poa 

 <il]>hid, which is, however, doubtless due to a wrong identification of a form of 

 P. cenisia, as no specimen of the former exists in the London collec- 

 tions. Polaris Bay was visited by HART in May, when only few plants 

 were discernible, and by COPPINGER in July and August. This station 

 is said to be rather poor in plant-life (for instance only two Saxifrac/ae 

 and no Cyperaceae), and HART is inclined to attribute this to the cir- 

 cumstance that the climate is severer there than on the west side of the 

 Channel. That may be so, but 1 am more inclined to think that it is 

 caused by the geological nature of the soil, the hard limestone forming 

 a very poor ground. The entire list of Polaris Bay contains only 

 twenty-two species, or in fact only nineteen when those are exluded 

 which are either wrongly determined, or cannot be upheld as separate 

 (Pa]>aver alpinum, Draba rupestris, Dryas octopdala}. I am hardly 

 inclined to think that this list is complete if it is to hold good for a 

 wider range; but I have indeed seen small districts much further south 

 in the limestone region of Kllesmereland having an equally poor vege- 

 tation. 



'I In- GitKKi.v expedition did not contribute much to om knowledge of 

 tin- Greenland flora, as its principal field of work fell to the west; still 

 we are indebted to Lor.K\\ooh and BRAINARD for some plants from the 

 northern-most points in the world where collections have been made 

 (\\lial the collections from the latest Danish Kast Greenland expedition 



