Section IV, 1887. [ 207 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



XVII. — Remarks on the Flora of the Northern Sliores of America, with Tabulated 

 Observations made by Mr. F. F. P\ynk on the seasonal development of Plants 

 at Cape Prince of Wales, Hudson' tStruii, during 1886. By George Lawson, 

 Ph.D., LL.D. 



(Bead May 25, 1887.) 



The observations made by Mr. Payne on the progress of vegetation during the spring, 

 summer and autumn of 1886, at Cape Prince of "Wales, Hudson Strait, cannot fail to be of 

 interest and use to those who are desirous of definite knowledge respecting the climate 

 of the Hudson Strait shores during the period of active plant growth. But a knowledge 

 of our northern vegetation is not only of interest in enabling us to form a judgment as to 

 the general character of the climate, or ascertain how far a given district is capable of 

 producing cultivated crops or plants that are in any Avay useful in the economical sense ; 

 there are other questions which, if more remote from immediate practical utility, are yet 

 not of less interest from a scientific point of view, and every contribution of information, 

 whether in form of observations or specimens, is of value. The floras of our northern 

 shores gradually merge northwardly into the composite flora found within the Arctic 

 circle, commonly called " the Arctic flora," the remarkable composition of which has given 

 rise to speculation as to its origin. Sir Joseph Hooker accounts for it by assuming 

 extensive changes of climate and of laud and sea, leading to a spread of Scandinavian 

 species over the whole polar zone, and the subsequent introduction of Asiatic and 

 American species, with which the Scandinavian are so largely associated in all the 

 Arctic districts except those of Europe and Greenland. Some of the difficulties of this 

 view are overcome, if we admit, with Darwin and Hooker, the great anticjuity of the 

 ScandinaA'ian flora, and the hypothesis originated by Edward Forbes and extended by 

 Charles Darwin, that previous to the Glacial Epoch, that flora was more uniformly 

 distributM over the whole polar zone than now ; that during that period it was driven 

 southward in every longitude, even across the tropics into the south temperate zone ; 

 and that, on the succeeding warmth of the present epoch, the surviving species again 

 spread northward, accompanied by aborigines of the countries which they had invaded 

 during their southern migration, and leaving behind on the northward march stragglers 

 of the Scandinavian flora that found permanent refuge in the mountains of the warmer 

 zones. The discussion of such an hypothesis necessarily opens up questions of variation, 

 adaptation, and survival, under changing conditions of climate and over large areas of 

 the earth's surface. It will be seen, at once, how important it is to have our Northern 

 American species carefully collocated with those of Northern Europe and Asia, especially 

 such of them as belong, or are allied, to species of the true Scandinavian flora. It is not 

 the discovery of new species on our northern shores that is the object most to be desired 

 in the interest of science, for we have already a confusing plethora of names, but rather 

 the collection of material to enable us to ascertain more accurately the relations to each 



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