268 ANNUAL EEPORT 



been found within the Antarctic circle. This may be because there 

 are very few tracts of land there of any extent, and there is, in fact 

 no inland where the sun's rays can be absorbed and used for warming 

 and vivifying the earth. 



Of the seven hundred and sixty two kinds of flowering plants in 

 the Arctic, only fifty of them are wholly residents of that zone, and 

 very few of the flowers that blossom in that chilly region have any 

 perfume. 



The colors generally are of the cold tints, white and light yellow 

 predominating. In the depths of the ocean are found the largest and 

 most vigorous specimens of plant life, such as colossal kelps and sim- 

 ilar life that grow throughout the year. Nearly all the plants in 

 these cold regions are biennial or perennial; the seasons are too short 

 for annuals, and these perennials begin to push their growth through 

 the snow* at the first cessation of the vernal cold. 



Mr. Schwatka says he has seen flowers in bloom on King Williams 

 Land so close to the snow that the foot could be put down and leave 

 an impression on the edge of the snow and crush the flower at the 

 same step. And Middendorf, a Siberian traveler of note, says he has 

 seen a rhododendron in that country in full bloom when the roots and 

 stems of the plant were completely incased in soil frozen as hard as a 

 stone. 



Among the useful plants found in the Arctic are the Scurvy grass, 

 a rough, cruciferous plant that is famous as a cure for the terrible 

 disease from which it is named, and Barley; and so rapid is the 

 growth of this-last named plant, that, in seasons at all favorable, it is 

 ready to cut two months after sowing, and two crops are raised in one 

 season. 



Besides the plants alluded to, which are similar in habit to those 

 in more favored climates, there is another kind that seems to love to 

 burrow and spread their species in and on the bare snow and ice it- 

 self. And naturalists have succeeded in separating forty-two species 

 of purely snow and ice plants from the many they have examined. 

 All of these require the microscope to determine what they are, and 

 nearly all are of a rich crimson or some of the tints of red, which 

 would look cheerful if it were not for the suggestion of splotches of 

 blood on the snow. Agassiz thus describes these singular plants as 

 seen on the Alps: "The deep repose, the purity of aspect of every 

 object, the snow broken only by ridges of angular rocks, produce an 

 effect no less beautiful than solemn. Sometimes in the midst of the 

 wide expanse one comes upon a patch of the so-called red snow of the 



