THE 



CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



SECOND SERIES. 



OUTLINES OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF 

 ARCTIC PLANTS. 



By Jos. D. Hooker, M.D., F.R.S., <fcc* 



I shall endeavour in the following pages to comply, as far a 

 I can, with a desire expressed by several distinguished Arctic 

 voyagers, that I should draw up an account of the affinities and 

 distribution of the flowering plants of the North Polar Regions. 

 The method I have followed has been, first to ascertain the names 

 and localities of all plants which appear on good evidence to have 

 been found north of the arctic circle in each continent ; then to 

 divide the polar zone longitudinally into areas characterized by 

 differences in their vegetation ; then to trace the distribution of 

 the arctic plants, and of their varieties and very closely allied 

 forms, into the temperate and alpine regions of both hemispheres. 

 Having tabulated these data, I have endeavoured to show how far 

 their present distribution may be accounted for by slow changes of 

 climate during and since the glacial period. 



The arctic flora forms a circumpolar belt of 10° to 14° latitude, 

 north of the arctic circle. There is no abrupt break or change in 

 the vegetation anywhere along this belt, except in the meridian of 

 Baffin's Bay, whose opposite shores present a sudden change from 

 an almost purely European flora on its east coast, to one with a 

 large admixture of American plants on its west. 



The number of flowering plants which have been collected within 



Read before the Linnean Society, London, June 21st, I860, and 

 reprinted (by permission of the President) from its Transactions, Vol 

 xxiii., pp. -251-2^1 : with some corrections by the Author. 



Yol. III. V No. 5 



