APPENDIX V 401 



blue grass (Poapratensis) , as lush as in the pasture about 

 Lexington. The grasses cannot be left without mention 

 of the beautiful little monotypic genus Pleuropogon 

 sahinei, growing in shallow pools among the rocks, its 

 tiny heads flung out like little rosy flags. 



And besides these there are downy, white, cotton- 

 grass (Eriophorum polystachium and E. scheuchzeri) and 

 reeds {Juncus and Luzula) about every pool and along 

 every swale; sedges (Carex), at least twelve species, 

 some on dry hills, some along the salt seashore, some 

 in wet pools — everywhere, in fact; club-moss (Ly co- 

 podium selago), not common, but widely scattered; and 

 scouring-rush {Equisetum arvense and E, variegatum), 

 not so large as of our land, but still typical of the 

 genus. 



Four ferns grow on the rock ledges. Aspidium 

 fragrans, a sweet-smelling fern of drier ledges, is com- 

 mon on the sunny terraces just above Borup Lodge. 

 Cystopteris fragilis is the commonest fern throughout 

 Northwest Greenland. It grows most abundant and 

 luxuriant in moist crevices on steep cliffs. Woodsia- 

 glahella is a Lilliputian fern, not an inch high, and 

 Woodsia ilvensis is not much larger. 



As soon as the snow begins to melt, the plants begin 

 to blossom. The first flowers at Etah usually open a 

 few days before the 1st of June, a month and a half after 

 the midnight sun has begun. Some species are often 

 retarded by the heavy summer snows, so that they hard- 

 ly have time to blossom at all, for the killing frosts begin 

 to come about two weeks before the last midnight sun. 

 Even before the 1st of August the autumnal yellows and 

 tans and browns come, and growth is at an end. The 

 season of life is brief, indeed, but under the daily bright 



