aimed at, of which the existing literature hitherto contains only so little. It appears from 

 what follows that the flora here, except the drier and hotter steppes, has an arctic, suh- 

 artic and boreal character, bearing in its main features a close and interesting resem- 

 blance to the flora of northern Europe. The resemblance was really frequently so striking, 

 above all in the hydrophytic plant-associations, that a Scandinavian botanist might won- 

 der at being in quite another part of the world. The vegetation here consists, in a great 

 measure, or even mostly, of the same species as in Scandinavia or of types very near the 

 European ones in systematical respects. Above all, it is the flora of northern Scandinavia 

 with which the vegetation of these regions seems to agree. It might have been inter- 

 esting, in the present paper, to enter into the question concerning the connection 

 between the flora of central Asia and that of Scandinavia, at a greater length, taking into 

 account the relations of land and sea, the migrations of the plants, etc, immediately 

 after the last glacial period. This, however, I will have to postpone until new and more 

 complete observations have been made by me during another journey to these regions, 

 which I hope to be able to undertake according to my plan. 



It appears from the exact examination I have made of the Asiatic species 

 that at times they differ slightly from the corresponding Scandinavian ones, 

 the species occurring here — as it seems — frequently in other geographical 

 races. It is, however, often impossible to determine exactly the systematical 

 value of these small variations, which are in part only of a relative charac- 

 ter, on the basis of a material so scarce and so accidentally brought together as must 

 needs be the case in expeditions of this kind. In order to be able to arrive at trust- 

 worthy results concerning this question, a very close study is required, based upon a far 

 richer material than the one I have had at my disposal. In order not to confuse any more 

 the systematical nomenclature, I have therefore — as long as I have not settled the syste- 

 matical value of the aberrations —chosen not to describe new types founded on these 

 dubious characters. Only in cases of real difference in point of organization, of undoubted- 

 ly genotypical nature, have I found it right to distinguish the form in question as a new 

 systematical type. The systematical value of these characters may perhaps also be viewed 

 in a different way by future researches based upon a richer material, but in cases where 

 the Asiatic forms are closely connected with well defined species, with which they 

 have hitherto been united or confounded, I have generally thought it right to refer the 

 forms only as new varieties or subspecies of these ones. The Asiatic specimens also 

 sometimes seemed to be intermediate between types distinctly separated in Scandinavia. 

 Especially in modern genera, rather rich in species, it is often difficult to decide whether 

 a specimen ought to be referred to one or to anolhei- oi' Iwo nearly related species, 

 which are from the first created only upon European material, since the specimens in 

 question appear to combine characters from both of them. 



Unfortunately, the collections of the expedition have not yet all arrived, 

 among which there is also likely to be found some botanical material that is 

 missing, consisting of a number of vascular plants as well as of mosses and lichens 



