THE FLOWERS OF KOLGUEV 403 



usually to flourish. 1 Perhaps this applies to the glabrous form ; on 

 Kolguev we had only the woolly variety. 



Arenaria peploides L. Sea Purslane. 



It is not a little singular that this, the sea purslane of our coasts, 

 should grow at one point only, as far as I am aware, on Kolguev. This 

 explains why Ruprecht missed it. That point is the southern outer 

 koski or sand-banks off Scharok. Here there were many lumps of it in 

 full flower (not in seed) on July 29. It covered heaps of seaweed and 

 hydrozoa on which were nests of glaucous gulls. 



GERANIACE/E 



Geranium sylvaticum L. Wood Geranium. 



This geranium, which we left in flower at Tromso on June 8, was so 

 much later on Kolguev, where it is very local, that when I found it on 

 the banks of the Gobista on August 27 scarcely a flower had dropped. 

 The tallest plant was perhaps a foot high. 



PAPILIONACE./E 



Astragalus alpinus L. Alpine Milk -vetch. 

 Common on the higher ground. 



Oxytropis sordida Willd. 



This, with buttercup {R. acris), forget-me-not (Myosotis arvensis), and 

 Nardosmia frigida was the earliest plant in flower on Kolguev. It is 

 perhaps the most abundant of all plants on high dry parts. It runs 

 through many varieties of colour. My note of June 17 runs: — 'The 

 bank above, facing the south, was a perfect flower garden. A lovely 

 little dwarf Myosotis was in full bloom ; a ranunculus very bright ; and 

 a very fine papilionaceous plant like a hairy sainfoin in three varieties, 

 pink, white, and purple. But none of these were higher than the very 

 short grass.' 



1 Bentham and Hooker. 



