14 BOTANICAL RESULTS OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



The red snow of the South Orkneys is also due to an algal association, but one that 

 is considerably poorer both in species and individuals than that causing yellow snow. 

 Most of the algal forms seem to contain fat in many of their cells. While the red 

 colour of these South Orkney samples appears to be due, as in the case of Arctic occur- 

 rences, to Chlamydomonas nivalis (Sphaerella nivalis), it is difficult to say definitely in 

 preserved material. Mr James Murray believes that the red snow of Victoria Land is 

 sometimes due to red rotifers, whose abundance in the Antarctic he was the first to 

 demonstrate. Red rotifers were found in Agassiz' red snow from the Alps, but have 

 not been recorded from the South Orkneys. The red colour Mr Murray ascribes to the 

 nature of the food. Elsewhere in this paper (p. 6) I have commented on the signi- 

 ficance of Dr Fritsch's discovery of pollen grains of Podocarpus in the red snow, as 

 proof of the occurrence of wind transportation from adjacent lands to Antarctica. 



Such, in outline, is the present state of our knowledge of the botany of Antarctic 

 regions, and it will be seen that by far the greater part is due to the labours of the 

 expeditions of the last ten years. Of course such a survey as this must necessarily be 

 incomplete, as several important papers on recent collections still remain to be published, 

 and even when this is done our botanical knowledge of the Antarctic will have many 

 gaps : further collections are much to be desired, especially from the Pacific and Indian 

 sides, whence practically nothing is known, beyond of course the collections of the 

 Belgica, Franqais, and Pourquoi Pas? on the west of Graham Land, and the various 

 collections from Victoria Land. Among the Antarctic lands from which no plants are 

 known are Coats Land, Enderby and Kemp Lands, Termination Land (if this long-lost 

 land is identical with Drygalski's reported " high land"), Wilkes Land, Edward Land, 

 Charcot Land, and Alexander Land not to omit New South Greenland if' that great 

 peninsula really exists in the Weddell Sea though it is quite to be expected that 

 their flora is very scanty since they are more or less covered with ice and little 

 bare rock appears. The explorations of the Aurora in Wilkes Land, the Deutschland 

 in Coats Land, and the Fram in Edward Land should add to our knowledge of 

 Antarctic botany. 



While our knowledge of Antarctic flora is certainly incomplete, all the known facts 

 point to a Fuegian origin. Not only does an analysis of the distribution of the 

 constituent elements indicate this, but the relative greater abundance of species in 

 Graham Land and vicinity than in Victoria Land, as well as the absence of New Zealand 

 forms, shows that the flora of the Antarctic is due to an emigration of species from 

 Fuegian lands. I have discussed above (pp. 6 and 7) the ways in which seeds might 

 cross Drake Strait. Winds and birds must have done the work of giving Antarctica 

 its present flora, via Graham Land from Fuegia, and thence it must have spread westward 

 via the coasts to Victoria Land, but naturally only a small proportion of the species 

 were carried so far. However, it is quite possible that by the same agencies a certain 

 number of mosses and lichens may have reached Wilkes Laud and Wilhelm Land from 

 Kerguelen and Heard Island, while South Georgia and the South Sandwich group may 



