802 



the relation belween the diffcrent algæ -flora is impossible; on ac- 

 count of this, my comparison of Ihat lime led to the result, that 

 »the Færoese algæ-flora mostly resembles that of the nearest parts 

 of the Brilish Isles, less that of West Norway, South Iceland and 

 Arctic Norway, still less that of North -East Iceland, least of all 

 that of Greenland, and a little more that of the North -American 

 coast of the North-Atlantic Ocean«. 



This result has been criticized by Si m mon s. Founding his 

 opinion on his list of algæ published in »Botaniska Notitser«, 1904 

 (compare Porsild and Simmons, 66, p. 203) he comes to the 

 conclusion that the countries, judged by the degree of resemblance 

 between their algæ-floræ and that of the Færoes should be named 

 as follows: South -West Iceland, North Norway, West Norway, Scot- 

 land, North Iceland, America, Greenland. 



The difference however is not very great, when we consider 

 that Simmons takes all Scotland as a wdiole, which tends to 

 reduce the resemblance with the Færoes considerably, and that I 

 expressly deal with the British Islands closest to the Færoes, that 

 is, the Shetland Isles. Moreover, whilst Simmons only deals with 

 the numbers (that his list is wanting in accuracy, and his num- 

 bers therefore not to be relied upon, has already been mentioned 

 above), I have proceeded more hypothetically, as we know very 

 little of the algæ-flora of many of the particular countries, and 

 have therefore tried to point out which species we may still expect 

 to find in the flora of the different countries; thus my result ne- 

 cessarily becomes less precisely formulated. 



I do not wish naturally to deny all importance to these num- 

 bers, on the contrarj^ I think that Sim mons's method might be 

 rather instructive, for instance his table 1. c. p. 219, and I therefore 

 add one of the same kind (see next page), calculated from the list 

 prepared by Jonsson and myself. Sim mons's method is this: he 

 adds up the number of the species of two floræ, calculates the per- 

 centage of those species common to both and of those peculiar to 

 each flora. Like Simmons I have in the following table only 

 dealt with Rhodophyceæ and Phæophyceæ , and likewise only with 

 the species that we know with certainty to be found in the parti- 

 cular countries. The relative order is, as will be seen from the table, 

 therefore as follows: South-West Iceland, Nordland, West Nor- 

 way, Finmark, North-East Iceland, the Shetland Isles, Scot- 

 land, North- America, Greenland. 



t?' 



