Preface. 



The papers collected in the present volume of "Meddelelser 

 om Grønland," under the title "The Structure and Biology of 

 Arctic Flowering plants." have been published by the Commission 

 for the Geographical and Geological Investigations of Greenland, at 

 the suggestion of the two undersigned. The greater part of the 

 material upon which the investigations recorded in the papers in 

 question have been carried out, belongs to the Botanical Museum in 

 Copenhagen, where are preserved the rich collections brought home 

 in the course of the last 35 years by the numerous, almost yearly, 

 Danish expeditions to Greenland. The meagre collections from 

 other Arctic regions and the richer ones from the Scandinavian 

 mountains, from Iceland and the Færoes, belonging to this museum, 

 have also been utilized. Thus the title "Arctic Flowering plants" 

 is in reality too comprehensive, in so far as, no Arctic material, 

 or very little, of plants from other Arctic regions than Greenland, 

 Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla has been available. ' Sometimes 

 material from Denmark has been used for comparison. 



The object of publishing these papers is twofold; firstly to 

 contribute towards a knowledge of the structure an i biology of 

 the Arctic flowering plants so far as the material in hand permits 

 of this, and secondly, inter alia, by means of numerous illustrations 

 to give a basis for future botanical observations and studies in 

 Arctic countries, made on the spot by the travellers themselves. 

 As a rule so much time is taken up by the journey itself, and the 

 gathering of the material, and the noting of observations of various 

 kinds — often made under difficult and perilous conditions — that 

 scarcely any time is left for more accurate studies on the spot as, for 

 instance, of the biology of the plants and the pollination of the 

 flowers, while even less time is left for investigations of a physiolo- 



^ We speak only of material preserved in alcohol, not of herbarium 

 specimens. 



