62 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



growing horizontally not many inches under- 

 ground. Size is a misleading criterion of age : the 

 wood of a Willow stem barely an inch in diameter 

 may show as many as 100 attenuated annual rings. 

 In the districts we visited, Willows, including the 

 British species, Salix herbacea (the smallest tree in 

 the British Isles), and a few other species with 

 many hybrids, and the Dwarf Birch are the only 

 trees. The tallest examples growing in sheltered 

 places or against the sides of rocks reached a height 

 of two to three feet; for the most part they lie 

 prone on the ground with no main stem, but with 

 spreading and often twisted shoots in which the 

 annual increase in length is very small. They have 

 water enough and in the summer abundant ' com- 

 fort of the sun,' but they are unable with impunity 

 to grow far above the ground-level. Arctic plants 

 point the moral of the wise words of a seventeenth 

 century divine. ' The best means to preserve peace 

 is in humbleness. The tall cedars feel the fury of 

 the tempest which blows over the humble shrubs 

 in the low valley.' 



In South Greenland, on the other hand, trees 

 are more abundant and, though usually much 

 lower, in rare instances they reach a height of 

 about eighteen feet. In addition to Willows and 

 Birches there are Junipers, Alders, and the American 

 Sorb (Sorbus americana). 



Landing on a beach where glacial streams have 

 built up a fan-shaped delta sloping seawards in a 

 graceful curve from the mouth of a ravine cut by 

 successive spring floods through the rocks of the 



