THE FLORA 419 



Europe than Greenland does ? Or that there are many 

 plants here identical with those growing on the southern 

 slopes of the Alps, which are altogether lacking in northern 

 Europe ? Or, still more strangely, that one must seek in 

 the Arctic regions of America, and not in Europe, for the 

 closest resemblances to the plants that flourished in the 

 far distant Miocene age in central Europe? Yet so we 

 are assured by competent authorities. To these facts we 

 may add the following statements from Hooker : 



The polar regions have relatively fewer species and vari- 

 eties than have other regions. The flora of all its parts is 

 largely identical or closely similar, but is unequally dis- 

 tributed. Of all Arctic regions, Greenland exhibits the 

 greatest poverty in number of species. Many Scandina- 

 vian plants have found their way westward to Greenland, 

 but have stopped short on its west coast, without crossing 

 to America; many American types terminate as abruptly 

 on the west coast of Baffin's Bay, not crossing to Green- 

 land and Europe; Greenland contains actually much fewer 

 species of European plants than have found their way 

 eastwards from Lapland by Asia into Western and Eastern 

 Arctic America; the Scandinavian vegetation has in every 

 longitude migrated across the tropics of Asia and America, 

 while plants typical of these continents which have found 

 their way into the Arctic regions have remained restricted 

 to their own meridians. 



These facts, at first seemingly inexplicable, and actually 

 so under existing conditions of sea, land, and temperature, 

 naturally have their explanation in the evolutionary and 

 geological history of our globe. Most of them will be 

 understood clearly from the following account given by 



