58 



PIIYTOGliOGRAPIIY AND EXPLORATION 



QUESTIONS 



be checked after one's visas are 

 granted? 



1. What arc some of the primary requi- 

 sites before planning an expedition of 

 a scientific nature? 3 Describe the procedure used in col- 



2. What are the 8 details which must Iccting and caring for plant specimens. 



Nicholas Polunin 



Aspects of Arctic Botany 



Reprinted by permission of the author and 

 publisher from American Scientist 43(2) :307- 

 322, 1955. 



The Arctic regions have long at- 

 tracted the adventurous, and latterly 

 have become relatively easy and safe to 

 visit. Of special interest is the plant 

 life of these regions, largely because of 

 its limitation by harsh environmental 

 conditions, so that in recent decades it 

 has been more and more actively in- 

 vestigated. During this time, and par- 

 ticularly in the quarter-century of my 

 own participation, certain trends in the 

 research within the wide bounds of 

 arctic botany have been evident. It is 

 chiefly these modem aspects, their or- 

 igins, and some of the main results of 

 the latest investigations, that I propose 

 to discuss in this paper. 



But first we should be clear as to 



just what arctic botany comprises. The 

 days when it merely involved the as- 

 sembling and working out of plant col- 

 lections are now well past; the bounds 

 have extended enormously, so that arc- 

 tic botany nowadays includes at least 

 some consideration of almost all of the 

 twenty or more disciplines which are 

 included in modem plant science. 

 With this broadening of the scientific 

 horizon, there has come an increased 

 need for claritv as to what we under- 

 stand the Arctic to include— a need 

 necessitated by persistent laxity in cit- 

 ing plants and animals as "arctic" when 

 they are merely boreal in range. It is 

 accordingly suggested that the Arctic 

 should comprise those regions of land 



