342 THORODDSEN 



are the most important: Hallormstadaskogur near Lagarfljot in East 

 Iceland, Bsejarstadaskogur below Jokulfell in 0raefi in South Ice- 

 land, and Thordarstadaskogur and Halsskogur in Fnjoskadal in North 

 Iceland. In Hallormstadaskogur some erect birch trees have a height 

 of 8 9 metres and a circumference of 70 80 cm., and many others 

 have a height of 5 7 metres. In Thordarstadaskogur the highest 

 tree is 8 l /2 metres high, with a circumference of 32 cm.; several of 

 the trees are 6 7 metres high, and the average height of the whole 

 wood is 3 4 metres. Halsskogur is somewhat lower; some of the 

 trees are, however, 6 7 metres high, and several 45 metres 1 . 

 Ba?jarstadaskogur is somewhat lower, but the trees are well-grown 

 and erect, and stunted birches are absent; the average height of the 

 birch trees is 4 5 metres and may often be as much as 6 metres 2 . 

 In a ravine near Skaftafell I measured in 1894 a birch tree which 

 was 7 metres high and a mountain ash which had a height of 9 1 /* 

 metres. This tree occurs sometimes dispersed in birch coppices, 

 and sometimes separately in ravines and on mountain slopes; it has 

 often been allowed to stand on account of some superstition. In some 

 places in North and South Iceland the mountain ash (Sorbus aiicnparia) 

 has been planted around farmsteads and by houses in towns. It at- 

 tains a height of 7- -10 metres, but in birch coppices it is gene- 

 rally only 4 5 metres, or even less. In birch coppices are also 

 found Betnla nana, Salix phylicifolia , 8. lanata and 5. glaiica and 

 Jimiperns communis. The soil in coppice-woods consists often of 

 "moar" knolly clay which rests sometimes on gravel and some- 

 times upon rock. Coppices often occur also on a stony bottom, as 

 in ravines, between rocky boulders, and often upon mountain slopes 

 occasionally they are found on boggy soil. The wood-floor is 

 very often occupied by heather moor; and birch coppices of lower 

 growth often even pass into heather moor; in the latter case the 

 same species are found in the woods as are found on ordinary 

 heather moors, and they form similar associations 3 . 



1 S. Sigurdsson: Skogarnir i Fnjoskadal (Andvari, XXV, 1900, pp. 144-175). 



H..J6nsson, 1905, pp. 46 50. Th. Thoroddsen in Geograiisk Tidsskrift, 

 XIII, 1895, pp. 1617. 



During latter years man}- papers have been written on the woods of Ice- 

 land. One of the most important is that by C. V. Pr\'tz: Skovdyrkning paa Island 

 in Tidsskrift for Skovvaesen. vol. XVII, 1905, pp.20 89; it also contains interesting 

 notes on the Icelandic soil. Moreover, works dealing with the woods of Iceland 

 are enumerated in Lysing Islands, vol. 2, on pp. 443 445. 



