The Flora of Greenland and its Origin. 27 



o' 



out with a greater abundance of species than the corres- 

 ponding districts on the eastern side. A peculiarity of the 

 northerly western districts is their relatively shght distance 

 from Ellesmere Land (Grant Land), whence species might 

 easily find their way. 



It is thus a generally characteristic feature, that the 

 flora of the West Coast is richer in number of species than 

 that of the East Coast, and the explanation is the same as 

 that mentioned in the case of the specially rich districts : 

 more ice-free land, more sheltered situation and shorter 

 distance from other countries; also the part played by the 

 Norse colonisation. Altogether, 134 species have been found 

 on the West Coast which are not found on the East Coast 

 (north of District I), that is, about one-third of the whole 

 flora\ Of these, as mentioned, abt. 50 are Norse Piants, but 

 the remainder, abt. 84, immigrated by the aid of Nature. 

 This figure may, however, be somewhat reduced, as we 

 may assume that some few inconspicuous or critical species 

 not at present known from East Greenland, will later be 

 found there, e. g. Sagina cæspitosa, some Carex species, 

 Callitriche and Potamogeton species and other water piants. 



There is indeed a conspicuous lack of aqualic piants 

 in East Greenland, which can only be partly explained by 

 the faet that there are fewer fresh waters than in West 

 Greenland; the low figures will doubtless be partly due also 

 to insufficiency of investigations here. There are 26 species 

 of aquatic piants known from Greenland, and all these are 

 found in West Greenland; only 7 or 8 of them have also 

 been found in East Greenland (all in the Angmagsalik Dis- 

 trict; of these, 3 also occur elsewhere in East Green- 

 land). 



' These are marked W on the General List. 



I 



