ARCTIC VEGETATION 61 



though applicable to certain localities in the winter, 

 do scant justice to Greenland in summer. It is a 

 land with many advantages: there are no letters, 

 no telegrams, and no public telephones the chief 

 Danish official at one of the larger Settlements 

 told me with pride that he had a local telephone. 

 Though in some districts mosquitoes may be 

 troublesome, the fauna of the country is fortunately 

 poor in insect pests; there are no fleas, except, I 

 believe, in one restricted area on the west coast; 

 no ants, and no myriapods. There are no reptiles, 

 frogs, or rats. 



The abundance of flowers makes an unexpected 

 impression upon a visitor imbued with the idea of 

 a country practically buried under a mass of ice 

 of unknown depth and of a long winter when the 

 sea is frozen and even the coastal regions are 

 covered with snow. One effect of Arctic conditions 

 is to limit the production of foliage shoots and 

 often to induce an abnormal development of sub- 

 terranean stems and roots and a prolific crop of 

 flowers. The amount of energy expended in the 

 production of roots becomes apparent if an attempt 

 is made to dig up intact a fairly large prostrate 

 Willow. The rocky ground is generally covered 

 with a thin layer of soil and roots are unable to 

 grow far in a vertical direction. In some places 

 permanently frozen ground is met with at about 

 two feet below the surface, while in other situations 

 there may be at least two yards of unfrozen earth 

 or sand in the summer. The root of one Willow 

 we dug up was traced for at least twelve yards 



