30 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



in different parts of Europe, others have their 

 nearest relatives in North America : where was the 

 original home of the Arctic floras and what was 

 their fate during and subsequent to the Glacial 

 period which reduced North America and north 

 and central Europe to much the same state as that 

 of Greenland to-day? When the Glacial period 

 was at its maximum, Greenland was even more 

 completely covered with ice than it is to-day and 

 the probability is that the whole qf the flora was 

 destroyed. With perhaps one exception, a species 

 of Pondweed (Potamogeton groenlandicum), the four 

 hundred odd species of flowering plants and fern- 

 like plants which have been recorded by botanists 

 from different parts of the island include none that 

 are peculiar to Greenland; they are either American 

 and circumpolar types or southern species. The 

 American and circumpolar plants doubtless arrived, 

 when climatic conditions became possible for the 

 existence of the higher plants, by way of Smith 

 Sound on the north-west corner, while most of 

 the immigrants from the south and west were 

 transported across the sea by natural agencies. A 

 few were no doubt introduced by the old Norse 

 colonists. It has been assumed, though on insuf- 

 ficient evidence, that a land connexion existed in 

 post-glacial times between East Greenland, Iceland, 

 and the Faroes 1 . 



1 Mr Holttum has recently written an account (Journal of 

 Ecology, vol. x, No. i, 1922) of the vegetation of West Greenland 

 summarising the present state of knowledge from an ecological 

 standpoint. A botanical bibliography is appended. 



