THE FLOE A 411 



ager along the coast; and since Labrador, as at present 

 geographically limited, and as it must always be known to 

 the great majority of visitors, is but little more than a 

 coast-line, the tundra is the characteristic Labrador for- 

 mation. " Beyond the last stunted trees," says Schimper, 1 

 "so far as ice does not cover the ground, the frigid desert, 

 or tundra, almost alone dominates Arctic mainlands and 

 islands. Only in the less cold and therefore chiefly southern 

 tracts in the Arctic zone, in more favourable localities a few 

 less insignificant formations exist; for instance, willow- 

 bushes and small meadows on river-banks and in fiords, or 

 even formations of dwarf shrubs, which consist of a denser 

 growth of the same evergreen, small-leaved, shrubby species 

 as appear singly in the tundra between mosses and lichens. 

 Dwarfed growth, a distinctly xerophilous character, the 

 predominance of mosses and lichens, the incomplete cover- 

 ing of the ground, these features are everywhere charac- 

 teristic of the tundra. ... In the less cold tundra dis- 

 tricts, more soil is occupied by vegetation than unoccupied ; 

 even wide tracts can have a continuous carpet of lichens. 

 Where the climate is most rigorous, the vegetation forms 

 only widely separated patches on the bare, usually stony 

 soil." 



Conditions in Labrador are such as to make possible the 

 close continuous growth almost everywhere. It is inter- 

 rupted only by the occasional intrusion of unfavourable or 

 improved surroundings. These are of four types: the 

 summits of the higher mountains; protruding areas of 

 sparsely covered rocks and gravels ; collections of water in 



1 A. F. W. Schimper, Plant Geography upon a Physiological Basis, 

 p. 685. Oxford, 1904. 



