PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 323 



Ostenl'eld also describes the vegetation near the boiling mud-pools, 

 and writes: "Close to the mud-pools the ground is quite bare, and 

 not until some distance from them do plants begin to appear; nearest 

 to them occurred Agrostis alba forming a net-work with its long rhi- 

 zomes, and beyond this came a dense, low carpet of Sagina procum- 

 bens, Cerastium vulgatnm, Plantago major (dwarf-form), Stellaria media 

 and a great abundance of Grimmia hypnoides: somewhat further off 

 many other plants occurred." "The vegetation near the outlet of 

 the large mud-pool Gunna was characteristic and peculiar; here the 

 damp ground (about 30 C.) was covered by a pure, green carpet of 

 Nardia crenulata in which only one other plant occurred, viz. Jun- 

 cus biifonius; within there was firm soil the particles of which were 

 held together by moss-protonema. The moss-carpet became brownish- 

 red where the ground was drier, but it was only Nardia which 

 changed colour; some mosses occurred, however, along the outer 



edge but only as a subordinate component" Joe, cit. 



pp. 239, 240). Near numerous solfataras in the neighbourhood of 

 Myvatn, on Odadahraun, Kerlingarfjoll, Torfajokull, and in several 

 other places no vestige of plant-life occurs. 



Vegetation on Wet Soil (bogs, pools, swamps and wet mea- 

 dows). Bog- and swamp-land (myrar) is very extensively distributed 

 in Iceland, both on the plateau and in the lowlands and valleys; 

 these tracts are also of great economic importance, as in the inha- 

 bited districts the grass is cut for hav, and the hav (lithev) is used 



tJ V * * \ V I 



as winter-fodder for sheep and ponies. In Iceland the swampy 

 meadow-tracts are divided according to their water-content into two 

 main divisions, myri (pi. myrar) and floi (pi. floar); the soil of the 

 former is firm and tough owing to the interwoven roots and rhizomes; 

 in the latter the soil is rotten, and more loosely connected, so that 

 cattle thrust their legs through it and easily get stuck fast; in the 

 former the surface is saturated with the ground water, but in the 

 latter the water reaches to the surface or slightly above it, conse- 

 quently here pools of all sizes abound. Upon the flat surface of the 

 "myrar" small cone-shaped knolls usually occur, and in "floar" water- 

 channels and swampy holes are often found between the knolls. 

 The vegetation is far denser and more continuous in the former 

 than in the latter. The dominant species in the swampy "floi" are 

 Car ex chordorrhiza, Eriophorum angusti folium and Scirpus ccespitosns, 

 and frequently occurring species are Carex rostrata, C. saxatilis, C. 

 Goodenoughii, C. limosa, C. rariflora and several other Carices, as also 



