672 ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. Ill 



ii. VEGETATIVE SEASON AND PERIODIC PHENOMENA. 



Kjellman describes l the climatic conditions under which plants exist in 

 the arctic region as a whole in the following manner: — 



'The season during which the development of arctic plants can proceed 

 with, at least, a greater degree of energy, is limited to about two months, 

 to which in specially favourable places some days may perhaps be added, 

 but from which in unfavourably situated parts of the district some days 

 must be deducted. 



' So long as the mean daily temperature does not exceed zero, develop- 

 ment can be considered as not having commenced. In the latter half of 

 June this mean is occasionally exceeded, but even then the cold, especially 

 at night, is often extreme. On sunny spots a plant here and there awakens 

 into activity, but the greater part of vegetation still continues its winter 

 sleep. Not until the beginning of July does the surface of the ground thaw 

 and the snow melt away. At the northern Goose Cape, on the western coast 

 of Novaya Zemlya, about 70 N. and thus not far north, in the year 1875, 

 considerable tracts inland as well as along the cliffs on the coast were still 

 covered with snow on the 23rd of June. Only a small number of plants 

 were developing and they had only just commenced. At Pittlekaj, the 

 winter quarters of the Vega expedition, the first flower of the year was seen 

 on the 23rd of June. The month of September cannot be included in the 

 vegetative season of arctic plants : frost has then commenced and snow 

 begun to fall. When on the 5th of September the Swedish expedition of 

 1872-3 arrived at Mossel Bay on the north coast of Spitzbergen, all the 

 smaller sheets of water were already covered with ice and the plants 

 on land were frozen. In the year 1875, at Matochkin Strait, which 

 separates the two chief islands of Novaya Zemlya, winter had already 

 commenced even in the first days of September. The whole terrestrial 

 vegetation was wrapped in winter sleep and the rocks bordering on the 

 strait were covered with snow. During the whole of September only 

 plants that had already stopped growing for the year were collected from 

 the north coast of Siberia by the Vega expedition.' 



According to all ocular testimony vegetation awakes as if by magic from 

 its winter sleep. Kjellman describes 1 the commencement of the vegetative 

 season as follows : — 



' It is not here as in southern latitudes, where one species after another 

 gradually begins to develop ; in the extreme north there is not, as there is 

 further south, a sharply defined flora for spring, summer, and autumn, 

 each composed of different plants flowering at a definite time. In polar 

 countries all plants, or nearly all, come into activity simultaneously, develop- 

 ment beginning everywhere in the same stage and continuing with equal 



1 Kjellman, op. cit., p. 450. 2 Id., op. cit, p. 46S. 



