III. The Vegetation. The Biology of the Flowers. 



As the list by Ostenfeld & Lundager shows, the country is 

 very poor in species. Out of the small number 92, 14 species have 

 been found at only one or at most two places, and a few were 

 found as single individuals only. 



In the above I have tried to show how inhospitable are the 

 conditions offered by so important a factor as the climate, and in 

 this I found a probable reason for the poverty of species. And yet 

 I was sometimes disappointed because localities, which must be 

 termed relatively good, nevertheless showed a still more decided 

 poverty of species than did the exposed rocky flat. 



The most important point is not that, on the whole, a favour- 

 able season of the year for the vegetation is wanting, but that the 

 time when moisture and warmth are to hand is too short. 



The climate determines the condition of the substratum. As the 

 summer is so short — only two months, reckoning from midsummer 

 towards the end of August — sufficient organic matter cannot be 

 formed from plant tissues during that time. There is scarcely a single 

 spot where real humus-formation can be demonstrated. Even in 

 places where the conditions appear most favourable, as upon shel- 

 tered hill-slopes where fallen and decaying parts of plants are really 

 deposited and are here and there allowed to remain in peace, the 

 material in question is of such a nature that (as for instance the 

 Cassiope-leaves) it decays very slowly, and certainly with a greater 

 tendency to peat-formation than to the formation of mild humus. 

 Even manured spots are not capable of producing a richer life, al- 

 though these appear to be able to offer an equivalent to the presumed 

 advantage of greater distance from the coast, as the conditions on 

 Maroussia indicate. 



Around skulls and other parts of skeletons, beautifully green 

 oases in the surrounding desert are often to be seen, even from a 

 distance; and in this relative luxuriance may grow vigorous tufts 

 of Melandrium triflorum and Hierochloë, as also Cerastiums and 

 Siellaria longipes with elongated internodes, the thick-leaved Saxifraga 

 cenma, and the inevitable Polygonum viviparum. A similar though 

 less decided luxuriance is sometimes due to the manure around 

 lemming-holes. 



