166 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



the ground with its snowy tufts, which look like the silvery 

 sprays of some magic plant. According to Linnaeus, it 

 thrives more luxuriantly than any other plant in the pine- 

 forests of Lapland, the surface of the soil being carpeted 

 with it for many miles in extent ; and if the forests are 

 accidentally burned to the ground, it quickly reappears, 

 and grows with all its original vigour. 



6 When the ground is crusted with a hard and frozen 

 snow, which prevents it from obtaining its usual food, the 

 reindeer turns to another lichen, called rock-hair (Alectoria 

 jubata), that grows in long bearded tufts on almost every 

 tree. In winters of extreme rigour the Laplanders cut 

 down whole forests of the largest trees, that their herds 

 may browse freely on the tufts which clothe the higher 

 branches. Hence it has been justly said that "the vast 

 dreary pine-forests of Lapland possess a character which 

 is peculiarly their own, and are perhaps more singular in 

 the eyes of the traveller than any other feature in the 

 landscapes of that remote and desolate region. This 

 character they owe to the immense number of lichens 

 with which they abound. The ground, instead of grass, is 

 carpeted with dense tufts of the reindeer moss, white as a 

 shower of new fallen snow ; while the trunks and branches 

 of the trees are swollen far beyond their usual dimensions 

 with huge, dusky, funereal branches of the rock-hair, hang- 

 ing down in masses, exhaling a damp earthy smell, like 

 an old cellar, or stretching from tree to tree in long 

 festoons, waving with every breath of wind, and creating a 

 perpetual melancholy sound." 



' In the regions furthest north are found various species 

 of lichens belonging to the genera Gyrophora and Umbili- 

 caria,) and known in the records of Arctic travel as rock 

 tripe, or tripe de roche / a name given to them in conse- 

 quence of their blistered thallus, which bears a faint 

 resemblance to the animal substance so called. They 

 afford a coarse kind of food, and proved of the greatest 

 service to the expeditions under Sir John Franklin j though 



