Schow's Essay on Botanical Geography. 165 



I. (Regnum Saxifragarum et Muscorum, vel Flora Alpino-arctica,) 

 This region includes, in the first place, all the countries within the polar 

 circle, together with some parts of America and Asia which lie south of 

 it, but have a polar climate ; (namely, Lapland, the North of Russia and 

 Siberia, Kamtschatka, Canada, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland ;) next, 

 part of the Scotch and Scandinavian mountains, as far as they fall within 

 the Alpine region ; and, lastly, the mountains in the central and southern 

 parts of Europe, in like manner, as far as they are related to the Alpine 

 region. The Alps, indeed, possess many plants which are wanting in the 

 Northern Polar countries ; they may even amount to three-fourths of the 

 whole number of species which grow there ; but, as the Genera, with few 

 exceptions, are the same as in the Polar Flora, and likewise the characte- 

 ristics of each agree very closely together, these two parts of the earth can 

 scarcely be considered otherwise than as two provinces of the same region. 

 As these two provinces do not immediately join each other, so they might 

 perhaps be treated, the one as a colony, the other as the mother-country, 

 which comparison, however, is merely ideal, for hardly will it be in any 

 person's power to prove that those Alpine plants of the south of Europe, 

 which also occur in the Polar regions, have migrated from one of these 

 parts of the globe to the other ; indeed, I do not consider this to be in the 

 smallest degree probable. What distinguishes this region, is the abun- 

 dance of mosses and lichens; the characteristic families, Saxifrageoe, Gen- 

 tianew, Alsinece, Caricece, Salicece ; an entire absence of tropical families; 

 a considerable decrease of the characteristic forms of the Temperate Zone ; 

 forests of fir or birch, or else a total absence of forests, scarcity of annuals, 

 abundance of cespitose plants, proportionally larger blossoms of pure co- 

 lours- The two Provinces are : (a) The Arctic Flora, Provincia Caricum. 

 The great abundance of Carices and some peculiar genera, as Diapensia, 

 Coptis, are the most important distinguishing marks. As subdivisions, we 

 might take the following countries, whose Floras, however, might recipro- 

 cally be distinguished by some peculiar species : Lapland, Iceland, Green- 

 land, the northern part of North America, and of Siberia, Kamtschatka. 

 (b) The Alpine flora of the south of Europe, Provincia Primulacearum, 

 et Pbyteumarum. The most important marks of distinction are ; a larger 

 number of Primulacew, namely, a great many species of the genera Pri~ 

 mula and Androsace, of which the polar lands have only a few species, and 

 the genus Aretia, there entirely wanting ; the tolerably numerous genus 

 Phyteuma, the genera Soldanella, Cherlcria, and others, which are likewise 

 wanting in the Polar countries; the greater number of lihndodendra, &c. 

 The subfloras would be ; the Pyrenean, Swiss, Tyrolese, Carpathian, Gre- 

 cian mountains, Apennine, and, probably, also the Spanish mountain Flora ; 

 and also the Caucasian, in so far as I can determine from Bibcrstein's Flora, 

 and from Engelbardt's and Parrot's travels. 



II. (Regnum Umbcllatarum ct Cruciferai-um.) This region compre- 

 hends the whole of the north of Europe, (with the exception of such parts 

 as belong to the preceding,) to the Pyrenees, the mountains of the south 

 of France, the Alps, the mountains of the north of Greece ; and besides 



