144 POLAR PROBLEMS 



ship^ now in the museum of Oslo, Norway. One of the unsolved 

 problems of phytogeography would approach solution if expeditions 

 directed to these regions would pay particular attention to the plant 

 remains, if such exist, in the form of wood, fruits, seeds, and other 

 vegetable relics and also to the possible existence of living plants 

 about these ruins whose introduction to the American coast could 

 be traced to the Norse Vikings. On such an expedition a scientific 

 assistant, preferably a trained botanical collector, should gather all 

 the plants within proximity of the ruins to be excavated. The evi- 

 dence, thus gathered, may be negative, and yet, if the kvan (Angelica) 

 were found, it would be evidence of former culture of that plant 

 on these inhospitable coasts.'* This line of botanical evidence was 

 suggested to William Hovgaard, who has given us the results of his 

 investigation in an interesting volume,^ and he heartily approved 

 of it. Wherever Norse Vikings landed and had temporary, or perma- 

 nent, abodes we may expect to find living descendants of the plants, 

 or remains of plants, introduced by the Northmen. After a careful 

 sifting of the evidence and an enumeration of the plants introduced by 

 the Northmen into Greenland, Ostenfeld says:^ "We may thus reckon, 

 with some degree of probability, that one-eighth (abt. 13 p.c.) of 

 Greenland's 390 species of vascular plants were brought into the 

 country through the old Norse colonisation." There is all the more 

 reason, therefore, for the careful collection of plants where Norse 

 ruins are found to the west of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait and on the 

 Labrador coast. 



Means of Dispersal of Circumpolar Plants 



There is an important problem as to the means of dispersal of the 

 circumpolar plants which, if we adopt the usually accepted theory, 

 were forced southwards during the Glacial Period and became located 

 in the higher mountains outside of the Arctic Regions. '^ Some of 

 these plants migrated northward when the continental glaciers 

 receded. What were the actual means of migration? Knud Andersen, 

 who studied the contents of the intestines of migratory birds killed 

 by flying against the lights of Danish lighthouses, found them empty, 

 nor were any seeds found adhering to these birds.* On the other 



3 A. W. Brogger: The Oseberg Ship, Amer. Scand. Rev., Vol. 9. 1921, pp. 439-447; reference on 

 p. 442. 



* J. W. Harshberger: The Gardens of the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 

 14, 1924, pp. 404-41S. 



5 The Voyages of the Norsemen to America, American Scandinavian Foundation, New York, I9i4- 



6C. H. Ostenfeld: The Flora of Greenland and Its Origin, K. Danske Videnskab. Selsk. Biol. 

 Meddelelser, Vol. 6, No. 3, Copenhagen, 1926, p. 17. 



' Fernald in a recent monograph (see, below, footnote 20) presents evidence for the persistence 

 of plants in unglaciated areas of Arctic America. 



8 Communicated in C. H. Ostenfeld: Phytogeographical Studies Based Upon Observations of 

 Phanerogamae and Pteridophyta, p. 117, in: Botany of the Faeroes Based Upon Danish Investiga- 

 tions, Part I, Copenhagen, 1901. 



