12 II. G. SIMMONS. [sec. arct. exp. fram 



overland to lliat district from the west coast are very unfavorable. Among 

 these last-mentioned 11 species, there are 3 not found in Greenland, 

 and the others there are generally restricted to the norllicrn parts. 



Now I think that a comparison with the tlora of north-western 

 Greenland may be undertaken, in order to see liow far the affinity goes, 

 and if it holds true that this flora as well as that of Ellesmcreland may 

 be called entirely Greenlandic and not American. Indeed it would have 

 been very desirable to have at liand. for this comparison, a revised list 

 of the flora of the north-western part of Greenland, but as I have not 

 yet had the time to make up such a list, as I intend to do, the com- 

 paring must be done without it. Natuorst, N. W. Gronl , gives a list 

 of 88 species, but by the additions since made by Meehan, Wetherill, 

 and myself, the number of species has been brought up to about the 

 same as that in Ellesmereland. 



In the Ellesmereland flora there are 72 species (63 °/o) which are 

 circumpolar plants spread all over the Arctic Regions and partly out- 

 side them also. Nearly every one of them is found in north-western 

 Greenland also, and consequently the percentage of such species may 

 be taken to be the same there as on the American side of the boun- 

 dary formed by Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy and Robson Chan- 

 nels. As it is hardly possible to say anything about the former home 

 of these plants and their ways of migration, most of them must be left 

 entirely out of consideration. Five more species, Campanula iinifiora, 

 Potentilla pulcJiella, Saxifraga auoides, Carex glareosa, C. narcUna, 

 may be added to these as circumpolar; even if they have not yet been 

 recorded from Arctic Siberia (or from Asia at all), they are probably 

 overlooked there. Pediciilaris lanata, absent from East Greenland, is 

 one of the species in the last group of eleven species (p. 11) and is 

 spread in Western Greenland from the north to 67 °; doubtless it has 

 reached there by way of Ellesmereland. Saxifraga Hirculus in the 

 south coast of Ellesmereland, must be an immigrant from the western 

 islands, in Greenland where it is only found in the northern part of 

 the east coast, it probably has immigrated from the south-east. Arenaria 

 ciliata, Carex ushilata, and C. ursina are of very sporadic occurrence 

 in the Arctic Regions, but the two latter have most probably come to 

 Ellesmereland from the American side, none of them are found in north- 

 western Greenland. The occurrence of Carex pedata and Agropyrum 

 violaceuni is rather curious, as they are found nowhere in the arctic 

 i.slands and in Greenland only further south. 



There are in North-western Greenland at least four species of a 



