ARCTIC PLANT GEOGRAPHY 147 



nunataks there was a chance for the survival of arctic plants. Holm/^ 

 while in the main accepting Nathorst's views^^ on the migration of 

 .plants during and after the Ice Age, recognizes the probability of 

 independent centers of origin, chiefly in high mountain regions. 



New light has been thrown upon this problem by the investigations 

 of Fernald,-" who argues for the persistence of plants during the 

 Glacial Period on the alpine tablelands of the Shickshock Mountains 

 of Gaspe Peninsula and of the Long Range of northwestern New- 

 foundland. These plants are for the most part otherwise known in 

 the Cordillera of western America (in the Rocky Mountains, the 

 Cascades, Sierra Nevada, and Coast Range) or in some cases in Alaska 

 or in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. They are quite unknown in 

 eastern America to the north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence or to the 

 southwest of Gaspe Peninsula. In a few cases western plants occur 

 upon the Magdalen Islands in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 and in several cases they are found upon the Torngat Mountains, 

 the high, rugged sierras of northern Labrador. Extensive exploration 

 has failed to discover these plants upon the mountains of northern 

 New England and northern New York. Fernald points out that some 

 of these species occur in Novaya Zemlya or on the adjacent smaller 

 islands of Arctic Russia and Arctic Lapland which were uncrossed 

 by at least the last two advances of the European ice sheet. He argues 

 for the greater age of these arctic-alpine plants than 25,000 years, 

 during which postglacial time species have migrated into the glaciated 

 areas, while the arctic-alpine plants have not migrated from the 

 unglaciated regions to the glaciated ones. He points out that the 

 above-mentioned unglaciated areas are now occupied by specialized 

 plants which are, therefore, presumably of great local antiquity and 

 are remnants of a general preglacial flora which survived in the far 

 north in districts not covered during the Pleistocene by continental 

 ice. 



The whole problem of plant survival should therefore be thrown 

 into the crucible and an extensive survey made of the areas on which 

 glacial relict plants might have been harbored. Why is the Antarctic 

 flora poor as contrasted with the relatively rich Arctic one? Is it 

 because of the restricted land areas in the south with expansive 



18 Ch. 2, Geographical Distribution, in work cited in footnote 14, above. 



ISA. G. Nathorst: Polarforskningens bidrag till forntidens vaxtgeografi, in A. E. Nordenskiold, 

 edit.: Studier och forskningar foranledda af mina resor i hoga norden, Stockholm, 1883-84, pp. 229- 

 301, with 2 maps (German translation: Beitrage der Polarforschung zur Pflanzengeographie der Vor- 

 zeit, in A. E. Nordenskiold, edit.: Studien und Forschungen veranlasst durch meine Reisen im hohen 

 Norden, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 219-288). 



See also Nathorst's papers in his polemic with Warming: Kritiska anmarkningar om den gron- 

 landska vegetationens historia, K. Svenska Velenskap.-Akad. Bihang til Handl., Vol. 16, Part 3. No. 6, 

 Stockholm, 1890; Kritische Bemerkungen uber die Geschichte der Vegetation Gronlands, Englers 

 Botan. Jahrb., Vol. 14, 1891, pp. 183-220. 



20 M. L. Fernald: Persistence of Plants in Unglaciated Areas of Boreal America, Memoirs Gray 

 Herbarium of Harvard Univ., No. 2, Cambridge, 1925 (also as Memoirs -Amer. Acad, of Arts and Sci., 

 Vol. IS, 192s, No. 3. pp. 237-342). 



