8 BOTANICAL RESULTS OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



Before turning to a consideration of the actual vegetable life of the Antarctic, 

 especially as revealed by the expeditions of the last few years, it would be advisable to 

 define the limits of the Antarctic regions from a phytogeographic standpoint. On this 

 subject there has been much diversity of opinion, largely attributable to an almost 

 complete ignorance of the conditions obtaining in the south. 



In an able discussion l of the whole question, Dr Skottsberg clearly points out the 

 obvious error that phytogeographers commit in placing the boundary of the Antarctic 

 regions too far to the north so as to include, according to some, even part of South 

 America : as untenable a position as that of those who would restrict the Antarctic to 

 the regions south of the astronomical Antarctic circle. Dr Skottsberg shows that the 

 parallel of 60 S. forms a more or less natural limit, and in this proposition of his I 

 quite agree. The South Orkneys without a doubt are truly Antarctic in all respects, 

 but South Georgia is sub-antarctic, and so in all probability is the South Sandwich group. 



The flora of the Antarctic regions as thus defined contains only two phanerogams, 

 viz. Descampsia antarctica (Hook.), Desv., and Colobanthus crassifolius, Hook. f. 

 var. brevifolius, Eng. The former of these has long been known from Antarctic regions, 

 having been collected by Eights about 1820 at the South Shetlands, and it also occurs 

 on several parts of Graham Land ; but its discovery, along with Colobanthus crassifolius, 

 by Dr Turquet, of the French Antarctic Expedition (1904-05). at Biscoe Bay, Anvers 

 Island, in 64 50' S., 63 40' W., was very interesting, for this was the most southerly 

 record for flowering plants known. Descampsia antarctica was also found by Dr 

 Turquet at Wandel Island, 65 4' S. Dr Charcot's expedition in the Pourquoi Pas? 

 in 1910 found these two species of flowering plants as far south as 68 S. Both these 

 phanerogams occur also in Fuegia, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia. Reference 

 has been made by me elsewhere" to the reputed grass of the South Orkneys, of whose 

 occurrence we have no evidence except the vague report of a sailor, and which I know 

 from personal search does not grow to-day in the place indicated. 



Ferns are entirely wanting in the Antarctic, as was only to be supposed, but mosses 

 are relatively abundant and form almost the chief constituent of the flora. Collections 3 

 of these are known from various points around the pole, including Graham Land, South 

 Shetlands (Belgica, Antarctic, Francais, and Pourquoi Pas?), South Orkneys (Scotia 

 and Argentine Expedition), Wilhelm Land (Gauss), and Victoria Land (Southern Cross, 

 Discovery, and Nimrod), but those from the Atlantic and American sides are incontestably 

 the richer, no doubt largely because of the nearer proximity of extra-polar land and 

 consequent possibility of migration, but also to some extent because that side of the 



1 "Some Remarks upon the geographical distribution of vegetation in the colder Southern Hemisphere," Carl 

 Skottsberg, Ymer (Stockholm), 1904, pp. 402-427. This paper also contains a useful bibliography of Antarctic and 

 sub-antarctic botany. 



1 See this volume, p. 24, and " The Botany of the South Orkneys," R. N. Rudmose Brown, Trans, and Proc. Hot. 

 Soc. Edin., xxiii. i. (1904-0r>). 



3 See paper by J. Cardot in this volume, pp. 55-69, and " La (lore bryologique cles Terres magellaniques de la 

 Georgia du sud et de 1'Antarctide," J. Cardot, Wissm. Erg. Schwed. Siidpolar-Exp., iv. 3. 



