Chap. II] ARCTIC PLANT FORMATIONS 687 



night. Nothing obstructs the light, the wind, or sound. Everywhere the breeze is 

 blowing, or everywhere it is still and silent. Throughout the whole of summer on 

 the extreme northern tundra, there lasts the one, solitary, unending, long summer day, 

 lighted by the faint beams of a moon-like sun which is shrouded in mist, and can be 

 gazed at with unblinking eye. . . . 



' The tundra however improves, the more we abandon a distant view of it and 

 devote attention to our immediate surroundings. Although at a closer examination 

 grasses appear in quantities, yet the eye misses the grassy sward and fresh green 

 of our native lands still more than the flowers. We notice that the worn-out carpet 

 spread at our feet is here and there (yoth to ^th of the area) blossoming with incon- 

 spicuous patches of the delicate heath-like Cassiope tetragona, the black crowberry 

 (Empetrum nigrum), or the bushy Dryas octopetala ; that here and there a scanty rein- 

 deer-moss like white coral adorns the ground ; that sometimes even a scarcely dis- 

 coverable half-buried dwarf-willow peeps furtively forth, or that the puny little flowers 

 of the stunted Chrysosplenium alternifolium, or the partially dried pigmy-plants of 

 the always dwarfish whitlow-grasses (Drabae), or of the dwarf Ranunculus (R. Pyg- 

 maeus), present themselves. The specialist however distinguishes the greatest 

 variety among the Drabae, ten different species of this genus occurring in fact in 

 Taimyr; yet the impression conveyed to the observer by all these little flowers 

 is not comparable with that of the favourites of our flowery landscape ; on the con- 

 trary, it is one of wretched meagreness. . . . These Drabae so preponderate over all 

 other flowers in Taimyr (10 different species) that they are exceeded in variety 

 only by the Saxifragae (12 species). The whole has the unmistakable impress of 

 great dryness, the more so because the dry tufts of leaves, the flower-stalks and 

 fruit capsules of the previous year, and of years before, remain firmly attached to 

 the green vegetation and flowering members of the current year, and for long, 

 though dead, surround and protect the green active buds. But scratch the ground 

 and we find moist soil, and at a finger's depth come upon ice ; even the moss in the 

 little furrows rests directly on subterranean ice. 



' Here and there on the high tundra there may appear an alpine poppy or a Pedi- 

 cularis, but they are, for the most part, premonitory signs that we are approaching 

 spots over which water trickles in early summer. In such places there is more 

 grass and a brighter green prevails ; the tussocks become larger, attaining a yard in 

 diameter and six inches in height ; the blades and haulms of the grasses are not only 

 longer— the blades as much as 3-4 inches, some haulms even 7 inches high— but 

 closer together ; the moss disappears, while Dryas and Cassiope grow freely. 



' Elsewhere on the high tundra wherever a distinct fresh green patch stands out 

 visible even at a great distance amidst the brownish yellow of the general expanse, 

 one may be certain that it is occupied by grasses, and that they are the sites of bur- 

 rows of the arctic fox, or are abandoned camping grounds of the Samoyedes. 



' As on these favoured oases in the midst of the general barren desert the power 

 of producing natural manure is preserved even in the extreme north, so in like 

 manner is it in muddy alluvial flats that are annually inundated. Only in these — 

 the Lajdy — can the grasses of the extreme north unite to form continuous tracts of 

 sward. In suitable inlets to plains of this kind I found hay of the previous year in 

 swathes which were a span in height, and 2 to 20 paces in width, and which served 



