No. XIV. BOTANY. 307 



It is noteworthy thai not on." of these i- ;i Greenland 

 plant, though all those marked with an asterisk Lnhabil 

 Arctic Kegions in Europe. The absence of al] LegummoscB in 



Spitsbergen and in Greenland (except two temperate species 

 in the south of that peninsula) is a most singular fact. The 

 collection has been searched in vain for any specimen of the 

 remarkable and beautiful little grass Pleur&pocjon , St <Un >/'/', 

 the sole representative of the only genus peculiar to the 

 Arctic regions, and which has been found nowhere but in 

 Melville Island and its immediate neighbourhood. It still 

 holds its place as the rarest and most inaccessible of known 

 flowering plants. 



The proportion of Monocotyledons to Dicotyledons in lat. 

 80° to 83° is 20 to 49 = 1 : 2-45, which is nearly that of Arctic 

 Europe flowering plants as given in my essay, namely, 1 : 2*3 ; 

 while that of the plants of all Greenland is 1 : 2*1. 



The proportion of genera to species is 42 : 69=1 : 1*7, 

 that for Arctic Europe being 1 : 2*3, and for all Greenland 

 1 : 2*0. This diminution of genera in proportion to species 

 with the dwindling flora is quite normal. 



It remains to add that the flora of 80° to 83° proves that 

 vegetation may be expected up to the Pole in this longitude 

 — though probably not in all, the contrast between the vege- 

 tation of lat. 80° to 83° in Grrinnell Island and Franz Josef's 

 Land, in the same latitude, being most striking in respect of 

 number and variety of plants. Here there is a sward covering 

 a deep layer of vegetable matter exhibiting a brilliant assem- 

 blage of gay-coloured flowers, the resort of butterflies and 

 bees ; in Franz Josef's Land vegetation exists only in rare 

 and isolated patches. Such dissimilarities were not antici- 

 pated in islands occupying so very small an area as the Polar 

 N. of 80°, and on the supposed extreme limits of vegetation. 



The northward extension of the Greenlandic flora so near 

 the Pole, and the retention of its characteristics as distin- 

 guished from the Spitsbergen and Polar Island floras, indi- 

 cate that the distribution of plants in the Arctic regions has 

 been meridional, and that the subsequent spread of the 



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