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XVII. Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants. 
By Jos. D. Hookeb, M.D., F.R.S., 8fc. 
(With a Map. Plate XXXII.) 
Read June 21st, 1860. 
I SHALL endeavour in the following pages to comply, as far as I can, with a desire 
expressed hy several distinguished Arctic voyagers, that I should draw up an account of 
the affinities and distribution of the flowering plants of the North Polar Regions. The 
method I have followed has been, first to ascertain the names and localities of all plants 
which appear on good evidence to have been found north of the arctic circle in each con- 
tinent ; then to divide the polar zone longitudinally into areas characterized by differences 
their vegetation ; then to trace the distribution of the arctic plants, and of their varieties 
cle 
and very closely allied forms, into the temperate and alpine regions of both hemispheres. 
Ilaving tabulated these data, I have endeavoured to show how far their present distribu- 
tion may be accounted for by slow changes of climate during and since the glacial period. 
The arctic flora forms a circumpolar belt of 10° to 14° latitude, north of the arctic 
circle. There is no abrupt break or change in the vegetation anywhere along this belt, 
except in the meridian of Baflin's Bay, whose opposite shores present a sudden change 
from an almost purely European flora on its east coast, to one with a large admixture of 
American plants on its west. 
The number of flowering plants which have been collected within the arctic ci 
762 (Monocot. 214 ; Dicot. 548). In the present state of cryptogamic botany it is im- 
possible to estimate accurately the number of flowerless plants found within the same 
area, or to define their geographical limits ; but the following figures give the best 
approximate idea I h ave obtained : — 
Filices 28 Characese .... 2 Fungi 200? 
Lycopodiaceaa . . 7 Musci 250 Algae 100 
Equisetaceaj . . 8 Hepatic* 80 Lichenes 250 
Total Cryptogams 925 
„ Pbasnogams 762 
1687 
Regarded as a whole, the arctic flora is decidedly Scandinavian ; for Arctic Scandi- 
navia, or Lapland, though a very small tract of land, contains by far the richest arctic 
flora, amounting to three-fourths of the whole; moreover upwards of three-fifths of the 
species, and almost all the genera, of Arctic Asia and America are likewise Lapponian, 
leaving far too small a percentage of other forms to admit of the Arctic Asiatic and 
American floras being ranked as anything more than subdivisions, which I shall here call 
districts, of one general arctic flora. 
Proceeding eastwards from Baffin's Bay, there is, first, the Greenland district, whose flora 
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