78 



FURTHER RECORDS FROM ICELAND. 

 By Arthur Bennett, F.L.S. 



In this Journal for March, 1886, 1 recorded the additions to the 

 Flora of Iceland, made after the publication of ' Groenlund's Flora ' 

 in 1881. 



I here propose to notice those that have since been added up to 

 1889, and to endeavour to show what is still required to clear up 

 many points connected with Icelandic Botany. Naturally, it 

 is to the Danish botanists we look for the principal part of this 

 work ; but still British botanists, entomologists and tourists, can 

 aid very materially. One difficulty is to know what is wanted, and 

 to some extent to obviate the gathering over again of plants well 

 known to exist in the island. I have given a list, at the end of this 

 paper, of records needing to be confirmed by specimens, confining 

 myself, however, to those numbered by Prof. Babington in his 

 "Revision of the Flora of Iceland," in the Linnean Society's 

 Journal, 1870, pp. 282—348. 



If any one visiting Iceland should see any of these plants, they 

 will do a service to Icelandic Botany by submitting them to Prof. 

 Babington, or Dr. Lange, of Copenhagen. 



A good many (perhaps most) of the species not numbered are 

 geographically unlikely to have ever occurred. One factor is 

 evidently gaining ground in Iceland, i. e., the introduction of plants 

 that accompany cultivation, such species as Melilotus alba, Bromus 

 secalinus, &c, are, as Rostrup observes, merely weeds. 



The principal papers that have appeared on the Flora are by M. 

 Halldorsson Fridriksson, in the ' Bot. Tidsskrift,' 1882, pp. 45 — 78, 

 " Om Islands Flora." In this he criticises the work of Groenlund, 

 in his ' Islands Flora,' and defends the work of his countryman, 

 Hjaltalin, ' Islenzk Grasafraad,' from Groenlund's certainly harsh 

 estimation of it, — " It is perfectly indifferent what plants figure, or 

 are named in that list," — and cites the totally different value that 

 Babington placed on it. This was followed by Groenlund, in the 

 same year and place (pp. 83 — 131), with a paper in which he dis- 

 cusses Fridriksson's criticisms. In these two papers the value of 

 the records of over one hundred species are reviewed by Frid- 

 riksson and Groenlund. It should be stated that Groenlund's 

 standard was a specimen in some herbarium ; but here he was not 

 consistent, for (seemingly because Babington recorded several 

 plants as in " Solander's Collection " but not localised, which in his 

 ' Flora ' he ignored) ; he was obliged to pass over several gathered 

 by Steenstrup and only labelled " Iceland," and Fridriksson calls 

 attention to these. 



The latest paper is that of Dr. E. Rostrup, in ' Bot. Tidsskrift,' 

 1888, pp. 168 — 186. He there records the new localities and new 

 species found by Feddersen, Davidsson, Stefansson, Thorsddsen, 

 and Froeken Thora Fridriksson. 



The following list contains these additions ; and it may be of 

 interest to see how many of the species that were numbered by 



