FLORA AND FAUNA ON THE NORTH COAST 



diary : " Mild, quiet rain falls for several hours, the first proper rain this 

 year." Thus there is a period — the springtime of vegetation in these lati- 

 tudes — during which the plants may be exposed to thirst, a fact which one 

 might refuse to believe if one thought merely of the omnipresent enormous 

 masses of snow and ice. Later on there will be more than sufficient water ; 

 the snow melts so that the soil becomes slushy, and snow and rain fall in 

 abundance ; then the plants have some difficulty in not getting drowned. 



If the Arctic plants are thus subjected to pronounced extremes with regard 

 to moisture, the peculiarities do not become less when we consider their relation 

 to the light. To thrive, every green plant requires light, as light is one of the 

 essential conditions for the formation of organic matter from the carbonic acid 

 of the air. In the Far North the winter is a dark period when the plants 

 sleep under their cover of snow, but, as a compensation, during summer there 

 is light botli day and night. As far as the light is concerned, the plants are 

 thus able to work and build through the whole of the twenty-four hours, 

 so that the short duration of summer is to some degree counterbalanced. This 

 has been demonstrated by experiments ; they really are capable of exploiting 

 this advantage which they have over their kindred of more southern regions, 

 where the darkness interrupts their work. 



Summing up these considerations, one may say that high Arctic plants 

 have a much shorter time of vegetation — merely two or three of the twelve 

 months of the year — but that, on the other hand, during this period they have 

 to work incessantly under difficult and harsh conditions. 



We shall now see what the plants that are to be found in these regions 

 look like, and how they are adapted to their conditions. 



The most prominent feature of the high Arctic plants is the fact that they 

 are low and keep close to the ground. They are mostly herbaceous, though 

 some are low shrubs. Shrubs as we know them, not to mention trees, do not 

 exist so far north. 



The largest plant is the Arctic willow. Old specimens of this may, even 

 on the north coast of Greenland, have a stem rather thicker than a finger and 

 more than a metre long; but it lies along the ground, forming by its profuse 

 branching a network through which the leaves and catkins of the year peep 

 out. Similarly to other varieties of willow, it sheds its leaves in the autumn. 

 Another dwarf bush characterizing the high Arctic regions is the Arctic 

 heather, whose tiny evergreen leaves, packed closely together, form four rows 

 along the branches, thereby giving them a square shape ; it has beautiful, 

 white, bell-shaped flowers, much resembling the lily of the valley. The whole 

 of the bush is rich in fragrant resinous matter, which makes it excellent fuel. 



Two very common dwarf bushes are the red^ saxifrage and the white moun- 

 tain anemone; both have rather thick leaves which, as a rule, wither in the 

 course of the winter, but remain on the plant as a protection for the young 

 leaves and buds. 



Many of the herbaceous plants form small, close clumps where the shoots 

 fight for room ; every shoot has a few fresh green leaves towards the top, whilst 

 the rest is hidden in a thick bed of withered leaves. The flowers shoot up 

 above the surface of the clump. This cespitous formation may be observed 

 in the tuft-saxifrage, in the tuft-silene (where the clumps may be so strongly 

 arched that they almost assume a half-ball shape), in the little white or yellow 

 draba, and in many others, as, for instance, several varieties of grasses. 



Other herbaceous plants may have leaves clustering close to the ground, 



29f> 



