Some Notes concerning the Vegetation of Germania Land 



407 



Saxifraga cernua is a remarkably variable species, though not 

 in response to the conditions of the wind. Its form differs according 

 to the different localities, but it makes its way everywhere : on dry 

 rocky flats where it grows up and becomes large and beautiful in 

 the shelter of a boulder, as well as upon a manured spot around an 

 animal skeleton where it utilises the sources of nourishment to 

 excess and develops thick, swollen and brittle leaves; or along small 

 water-courses down the rocky slopes with a gravelly bottom, but in 

 such a case it rarely flowers until very late; and lastly in bogs and 

 near lakes in the wettest moss, where it scatters its bulbils very 



Fig. 17. Willow-copse at Pustervig. 



abundantly. Flowers are of secondary importance to it. Here it 

 stands long and straggling — both large and small individuals — 

 and so dense that it characterizes the locality yet without adorning 

 the landscape. The bulbils germinate also upon the parent plant, 

 in the axils of the withered leaves. 



Saxifraga groenlandica was found to be almost fully expanded on 

 May 20, 1907, in a valley which lies N.W. — S.E. near Termometer- 

 fjeld. It was still snow-covered, but received moisture from snow^ 

 which, in the form of an ice-collar, hung beyond the small tuft, 

 whose one-year-old stems with withered flowers were protruding. 

 The exposition was southern and shelter Avas obtained from some 

 stones towards the west and the mountains towards the north and 



