Wild Flowers 381 



llora, to which the name of the Dryas formation is 

 applied, from Dryas odopctala (Mountain Avens) (2),^ 

 the most frequent and most conspicuous of the species 

 which distinguish it. The other three species which 

 characterise this flora are Salix reticulata (Willow), 

 Thalidrum alpinum (Alpine Meadow-Eue), and Carex 

 Tupestris (Eock Sedge). Dryas often forms on the 

 ground a shining white flower-carpet, variegated with, 

 may be, the pretty blue of the Veronica saxatilis (Blue 

 Eock Speedwell), the yellow of the Potentilla nivea 

 (Suow Potentilla), and the violet of Oxytropis Icq^j^onica 

 (Lapland Oxytropis) (11). Dryas ocfojjetala (Moiint&in 

 Avens) (2) grows on the mountains of Norway, 

 especially above the birch limit, from the most southern 

 part of the province of Christiansand as far as to the 

 North Cape and Varanger. In the southern parts of 

 the country it is occasionally found in the lower regions, 

 growing, for instance, abundantly on the limestone and 

 argillaceous slate rocks at Sangesund, 59° north lati- 

 tude, nearly on a level with the sea ; also at Varaldsen 

 in the Hardanger, and on the shore cliffs at Frosten in 

 the Throndhjem Fjord, living side by side in these low- 

 lying places with a more southern flora, But it is not 

 until we come to the islands in the sea at Helgelancl 

 (about 66° north latitude) that the Dryas group, 

 which in Southern Norway is generally limited to the 

 mountains, descends to the sea. 



Beginning in the south, we find on the black shining 

 shale around Grananuten and Haarteigen, in the 



1 The figures refer to corresponding ones in Part ill., where the flowers, 

 which are numbered, are fully described, some of them for the first time in 

 English. 



