No. XIV. BOTANY. 309 



Greenland, now known to be an island (partly by the coast 

 surveys of the Polar Expedition, and more demonstrably from 

 the results deduced by Professor Haughton from the tidal ob- 

 servations), are, instead of ice-capped, merely ice-girt lands. 



The cryptogamic flora of the regions visited produced 

 little novelty except amongst the lichens. These have 

 been submitted to Professor Theodore Fries of Upsala for 

 determination, who sends the following interesting statement 

 regarding them : — 



' The lichens brought home by the Expedition were 

 gathered chiefly in Grinnell Land, in the vicinity of the 

 winter-quarters of the two vessels. It is easy to understand 

 how great an interest this collection must have for every 

 botanist, considering that, with the exception of nine species, 

 which Payer indicates as having been found in the northern 

 part of Franz Josef's Land, not a single lichen is as yet 

 known from any more northern region than the Seven Islands, 

 situated south of 81° N. lat, 



' On this account I submitted the material entrusted to 

 me to the most minute examination. Not only the more 

 developed specimens have passed a microscopical examination, 

 but every morsel has been examined with a powerful lens, and 

 every little fragment of a lichen thus found has afterwards 

 been examined under the microscope. The result of this 

 rather troublesome but very interesting examination has been, 

 that the number of lichens represented in this collection 

 from north of lat. 81° is about ninety species. Three of 

 these at least are new to science, whilst several are not known 

 before from the Arctic regions, but only from localities much 

 further to the south. 



' On reviewing the collections as a whole, the eye is 

 immediately struck with the paucity of more developed erect- 

 growing and leaflike species, as well as the contracted shape 

 of those which were found. This is the more remarkable, as 

 it might naturally be expected that such lichens would, during 

 the long winter season, constitute the principal or only food 

 of the musk-oxen that exist in those regions. It is strange 



