Alpine and Arctic Floras 



colonised again after the Ice Age disappeared. First 

 the seashore, then the lowland hills and valleys, and 

 finally the uplands were occupied, until it is only on such 

 summits that one finds any hints as to the way in which 

 it was done. 



In the arctic regions the tundra, which occupies so 

 much of Siberia and of Russia and Lapland, is also a 

 moss-covered, more or less peaty country, where the 

 flowering plants are scattered about and isolated, form- 

 ing an open flora. The conditions of life for these 

 miserable stunted starvelings are extremely severe, and 

 not at all easy to understand. 



A pathetic account by Middendorf is cited in 

 Schimper's classical work on plant geography.^ ^' On 

 the 14th April I found myself on the Yenisei near 

 Diidino. . . . The landscape still lay buried in the 

 deepest winter rest, and the clear shining of the sun, 

 although it hardly sank below the horizon, could not 

 even during the warmest hour of the day raise the 

 temperature above 16° to 20° R. (20° to 25° C.) of frost. 

 Before and after twelve o'clock, the thermometer regu- 

 larly stayed at from - 23° to - 30° R. ( - 29° to - 38° C). 

 I went out to observe the scene. Where the snow had 

 sunk or been blown off by the wind, the projecting 

 branches of willows had broken through and crunched 

 like wax under my snow-shoes. They were frozen stif¥, 

 and one could see the icy sap where they broke off. 

 Suddenly I stopped in amazement, for, peering out of 

 the snow, but sometimes not more than ij inch above 

 its surface, were willow catkins, perfectly formed and of 

 a shining, silvery white. The very twigs which pro- 

 duced them were in their lower part frozen hard at 

 only 2 inches deep in the snow, and of course the 

 stems, branches, and roots, deeply buried below the 

 snow, were even more thoroughly frozen up." 



92 



