GLACIERS AND PLANT LIFE. 3 I I 



enveloping shield the nutritive lichens, and other 

 plants upon which they browse, are protected (as by 

 a glass house erected over them) from the rigour of 

 the elements. Not only does it serve as a covering 

 to preserve them from the influence of the great 

 external frost, but it also shields the earth itself from 

 its intensity, while the continual dripping of water 

 from its under side at a temperature just above its 

 freezing point, affords constant nourishment to the 

 plants beneath, so that the moment spring arrives and 

 a hot wind causes the liquefaction of the snow, they 

 are instantly ready to start into vigorous growth 

 indeed it is doubtful whether some of these plants do 

 not maintain a constant growth throughout the winter, 

 even while buried beneath the snow. There are certain 

 plants which as we know, continue to grow in darkness 

 and while covered up from the atmosphere and sunlight, 

 even in our own country ; we need go no further to seek 

 for examples, than the mushroom, the seakale, and the 

 rhubarb, which grow in this way, when " forced " for early 

 use, in all our wel Iconducted gardens. In the same way, 

 we believe that some at least of the arctic plants are con- 

 stantly growing beneath the snow. We may cite the 

 purple flowering saxifrage (Saxifraga Oppositifolici) as a 

 probable instance in point, because wherever bits of it 

 appear above the surface, even during the depth of 

 winter, where the movement of the drifting snows 

 may have temporarily exposed it, this wonderful plant 

 always seems, though exposed to the full influence of 

 the icy winds, to be covered with newly grown, 

 tender green, shoots. * 



* Voyage to the Polar Sea, by Capt. Sir George Nares, R.N., 1878,. 

 Vol. ii, p. 205. 



