INSULAR FLORAS. 381 



Novaia Zemlia has been by this time so exhaustively ex- 

 plored that little can remain undiscovered ; and the same 

 may be said of Spitzbergen. Th. Holm has brought to- 

 gether and discussed in some detail (7) the composition and 

 physiological characters of the vegetation of the former 

 country. He also gives a tabular view of the distribution 

 of the 193 phanerogams and four vascular cryptogams 

 hitherto collected, and indicates their possible migrations. 

 His table exhibits the following extensions : Arctic 

 America, Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen. 

 Bear Island, Scandinavia, Arctic Russia, North Siberia, 

 and the Asiatic coast of Behring's Sound. Out of 193 

 species, 133 are common to Greenland and 1 13 to Behring's 

 Strait. The plants new to science are : Colpodium humile, 

 Calamagrostis Holmii, Glycerin tenella var. pumila and a 

 hybrid willow — Salix aixtica x polaris ; and those new to 

 Novaia Zemlia : Cineraria frigida, Potentilla emarginata, 

 Epilobium alpimim, Draba repens, Ranunculus afpnis, 

 Alsine biflora, Carex incui^va, C. lagopiua, and C. hyper- 

 borea. The predominating natural orders are : Gramineae, 

 31 species; Cruciferae, 21 ; Cyperaceae, 20; Compositae 

 and Caryophyllaceae, 14; Salicineae, 13 ; and Saxifragaceae, 

 10. Petaloid monocots are limited to Allium sibiricuni 

 and Lloydia serotina ; no orchid having been found. 



As already indicated, the literature relating to the flora 

 of Spitzbergen and Greenland is voluminous ; and although 

 some of it is rather earlier in date than I proposed to attempt 

 to deal with, it seems desirable to make some reference to 

 it, because there is an intimate connection between that 

 and the later contributions ; Nathorst and Warming having 

 entered into a critical dispute on the age and origin of the 

 flora. Nathorst's original work in Swedish (8), of which 

 there is a German abstract (9), is a very elaborate perform- 

 ance ; the local and general distribution of the plants being 

 most fully tabulated, in order to prove the direction of 

 migration. The author's principal conclusions may be given 

 in all brevity, and without comment. First he points out 

 that the [vascular] flora of Spitzbergen is richer than that of 



any other country in the same latitude ; and many of the 



27 



