1 8 CARL SKOTTSBERG, (Schwed. Südpolar-Exp. 



In my voyage of 1909 I also saw some parts of the coast between Cumberland 

 Bay and Bay of Isles, where we made an excursion round a cove called Rosita 

 Harbour by the Norwegian whalers. The snow did not allow of any detailed ob- 

 servations; all I could see was that vegetation bore just the same general stamp as 

 elsewhere. 



VII. The plant associations. 



If one takes the conception "formation" in a wide sense, all the vegetation in 

 South Georgia may be described as tundra. We have, however, already seen that 

 the vegetation round the shore is different from that further inland, that boggy 

 places are met with &ca: there are several associations. The inland tundra is rather 

 uniform and shows little variation on different kinds of soil — it must be remenbered 

 that the rock in itself offers little variation. The swampy spots do not break the 

 general impression given by the tundra. Only the ./-^«-association deserves to be 

 treated separately. Nobody, who had wandered among tussocks, nearly attaining 

 the height of a man, should feel inclined to speak of "tundra" in this case. 

 After having studied Poa flabellata in Fuegia, the Falklands and South Georgia, 

 I must regard it as an halophilous plant, confined to the vicinity of the sea; stray 

 specimens sometimes, but rarely, are found at some short distance from the beach. 

 The always very marked difference between the /W-association and the inland 

 tundra must be emphasized here, especially as it has all been mixed up by Warming 

 in his Oecology of plants. Here we find on p. 200 the "tussock-formation" of 

 Patagonia (where?), the Falklands and South Georgia described among the "Oxy- 

 lophytes" and mentioned in connexion with other "grass-heath". On p. 214 we 

 find that, according to Will, Acaena adscendens produces "heath" in South Georgia. 

 On p. 260, we again meet the tussock-grass of our island, but now among the 

 "psychrophytes". I quote the following passage: "In South Georgia fell-field is essen- 

 tially formed by scattered tufts of Poa flabellata Between the tussocks 



only few species grow. On the Falkland Islands the tussock-grass is also common. 

 But the fell-field is much richer in forms here. There occur evergreen dwarfshrubs, 

 Cliiliotriclium amelloideum, Pemettya empetrifolia, which often rise to true heath. 

 In addition we find here the peculiar cushion-like umbelliferous Azorella caespitosa 1 ." 

 But, this "psychrophilous fell-field" of tussock-grass in South-Georgia in the same 

 association described before as the oxylophilous "tussock-formation". And the 

 "fell-field" in the Falklands as described by WARMING, consists of two very different 

 associations — one is the pure Poa-flabellata-a.., the other is the inland tundra, as 

 the heath down here is more appropriately styled. 



1 That is Be/ax gummifera (Lam.) Spreng. (= Azorella caespitosa Vahl -non Cav.). 



