116 H.G.SIMMONS. [sec. ARCT. EXP. FRAM 



locality among moss and lichens, so as to show almost only the flower. 

 The prostrate stems crept among the moss, only the flowering shoots 

 reached a little above it. Found flowering August 8, 1900. 



Occurrence. South coast: only in a limited area between Spade 

 Point and Seagull Rock in the Harbour Fjord (2575). 



Distribution: Northern East Greenland, Northern Danish Green- 

 land, Boothia Felix (? a specimen from Ross's second voyage 1829 — 33 

 in the Nat. Hist. Mus.), Labrador, Canada, Northern Russia, Novaja 

 Semlja, Spitsbergen, Northern Finland and Scandinavia, mountains of 

 Central and Southern Europe, Ireland, Iceland. 



Alsine Rossii, (R. Br.) Fenzl. 



Arenaria Rossii, R. Bhown, Chlor. Melv., 1823; Hooker, F1. Bor. Amer.; Alsine 

 Rossii, Fexzl, Verbr. d. Alsin. ; Lange, Consp. Fl. Groenl. ; Simmons, Prel. 

 Rep. et Bot. Arb. ; Ledebour, Fl. Ross.; Andersson & Hesselmax, Spetsb. 

 kiirlv. ; Arenaria groenlandica, Hart, Bot. Br. Pol. Exp.; Greely, Rep. (?); 

 non Fenzl. 



Fig. Tab. nostra 6, fig. 4—6. 



My specimens fully agree with the description of Rob. Brown, 1. c, 

 p. 14. The plant is very apt to catch the eye, as its individuals, 

 forming high, compact, pulvinate tufts, usually of a semiorbicular shape, 

 are spread in thousands over the moist (or later in the sunmier often 

 very dry) clay plains. It seems to flower very sparingly and rather late 

 in the summer. When I found it for the first time, at the Barren Vallies 

 in the Harbour Fjord, July 28, 1900, there were among enormous 

 numbers of individuals, only a few to be found that had flowers, and 

 it appeared as if none had been developed the previous year. The same 

 was the case at the Western Sound, August 1st, but in 1901 I saw it 

 further westward in some places both in flower and with flowers from 

 the previous year. Developed fruit was not seen, but it must, of course, 

 ripen its seed some years, as it has no other means of propagation. 



The flowers are very small, the sepals ovate-lanceolate, rather 

 concave, of a more or less reddish hue, and with a narrow white margin. 

 Petals of the length of the sepals, white, or a little pink. The plant 

 has never been figured before so far as I know. 



When A. Rossii grows in mossy soil, the individuals become 

 densely tufted and more like the form which Richardson has brought 

 home from the arctic coast of America and which forms the /? of 

 Hooker, 1. c. I, p. 100. The A. Bossii of Taylor, Fl. pi. Baffin B., 

 is, probably, not at all the true one, as I have elsewhere shown (Dan. 



