218 OLAF GALLØE 
moss-vegetation (of Hylocomium proliferum, H. triquetrum, H. 
squarrosum, H. parietinum and Climacium dendroides). 
In Hålsskogur I noted a vegetation consisting of various grasses, 
of Arctostophylos, dwarf birches, Vaccinium uliginosum, Equisetum, 
Rubus saxatilis, Empetrum and a few other plants. The ground was 
in part covered with decaying birch-leaves, forming a layer of about 
2—6 cm. in depth, and the trunks had an average height of about 
3 metres. The ground there was quite devoid of lichens as were 
also the trunks. 
The information contained in the literature on the subject, as 
regards the ground-vegetation of coppices, is not very exhaustive, 
and does not give much information with regard to how far lichens 
occur or not. One must, however, expect that coppices, the floor of 
which is occupied by heath-vegetation, can also harbour lichens, 
but nothing concerning this is mentioned in the literature on the 
subject, and I myself have not seen any coppices with an actual 
ground-vegetation of heath. Nor is there any information to hand 
as to how far grassland, mat-herbage or moss-carpets, when occur- 
ring as ground-vegetation, shelter lichens. 
It is, however, certain that earth-lichens may occur here and 
there, but even in the most favourable cases, they are but few in 
number and physiognomically little dominant. 
H. Jønsson mentions for instance “Cladonia-species” (which?) 
as occurring near Breidibolstadir (South Iceland) and says that they 
occur there “abundantly, but are far from playing so important a 
part and from being so widely distributed, as in South Greenland.” 
I myself only once found a small tuft of Cladonia pityrea. 
I do not doubt that, on the whole, the floor of the coppices 
may be regarded as poor in, or devoid of, lichens and the reason 
for this is undoubtedly to be found as usual, in the want of light 
and in the leaf-fall. 
Nor does the ground-vegetation of willow-coppices appear to 
include lichens. 
The epiphytic flora will be mentioned elsewhere, so I shall not 
enter into the subject more fully here, where only the earth-lichens 
of the plant-associations are being discussed. 
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