THE POLAR ZONE. 11 



of them grow in Melville Island.* Captain Parry's officers 

 likewise found there a variety of Saxifrages, all of which 

 may be met with on our own higher mountains, chiefly in 

 Wales and Scotland. For instance, Purple Saxifrage (Saxi- 

 fraga oppositifolia) , with its egg-shaped leaves and prostrate 

 stem, and its purplish-red blossoms; the white-blossomed 

 Drooping Bulbous Saxifrage (S. cernua) ; the Clustered 

 Alpine Saxifrage (S. nivalis), distinguished by the two pale 

 green spots on its white petals ; Alpine Brook Saxifrage 

 (S. rivularis), with a stem no more than two inches high, 

 and a few small, white flowers; and the Tufted Alpine 

 Saxifrage (S. casjpitosa) , with its white petals streaked with 

 three green nerves. In Melville's Island too there are a 

 considerable number of flowers belonging to the Composite 

 Family. 



Some very pretty kinds of Eriopkorum are found in these 

 regions (Cotton Grass as it is called, though it is, strictly 

 speaking, a Sedge) : some species of it grow in damp situa- 

 tions in England. Thread, spun from some of our English 

 Cotton Grass, was to be seen in the Great Exhibition of 



* The above list of plants, which Meyen has taken from Phipps and 

 Scoresby, is here borrowed from him again, with the addition of the English 



