FLOfcA. 169 



Highlands ; but in Iceland it overspreads the whole 

 country, flourishing more abundantly, and attaining to a 

 larger growth on the volcanic soil of the western coast 

 than elsewhere. It is collected triennial ly, for it requires 

 three years to reach maturity, after the spots where it 

 thrives have been cleared. We are told that the meal 

 obtained from it, when mixed with wheat-flour, produces 

 a greater quantity, though perhaps a less nutritious 

 quality, of bread than can be manufactured from wheat- 

 flour alone. The great objection to it is its bitterness, 

 arising from its peculiar astringent principle, cetraria. 

 However, the Lapps and Icelanders remove this disagree- 

 able pungency by a simple process. They chop the lichen 

 to pieces, and macerate it for several days in water mixed 

 with salt of tartar or quicklime, which it absorbs very 

 readily ; next they dry it, and pulverize it ; then, mixed 

 with the flour of the common knot-grass, it is made into 

 a cake, or boiled, and eaten with reindeer's milk. 



' Mosses are abundant in the Arctic regions, increasing 

 in number and beauty as we approach the Pole, and 

 covering the desert land with a thin veil of verdure, which 

 refreshes the eye and gladdens the heart of the traveller. 

 On the hills of Lapland and Greenland they are exten- 

 sively distributed ; and the landscape owes most of its 

 interest to the charming contrasts they afford. Of all 

 the genera, perhaps the bog-mosses, Sphagna, are the 

 most luxuriant ; but at the same time they are the least 

 attractive, and the plains which they cover are even 

 drearier than the naked rock. In Melville Island these 

 mosses form upwards of a fourth part of the whole flora. 

 Much finer to the sight is the common hair-moss (Poly- 

 trichum commune), which extends over the levels of Lap- 

 land, and is used by the Lapps, when they are bound on 

 long journeys, for a temporary couch. We may mention 

 also the fork-moss (Dicranum), which the Eskimos twist 

 into wicks for their rude lamps. 



