Il. CLIMATE AND FLORA. 
u above-described rather rigorous climate in connection with 
the homogeneous soil, consisting of basaltic rocks and their 
weathering products, is no doubt in great part, and perhaps even 
more than the isolated position of the island, responsible for the 
paucity of species apparent in the phanerogams. Thus the most 
recent treatment of the Icelandic flora, St. Stefansson’s “Flora Is- 
lands”, 2. ed. 1924, gives a total of only 375 phanerogams and vas- 
cular cryptogams (the number of species of Taraxacum and Hiera- 
cium is, however, taken from the 1st edition of the Flora, 1901). 
The floristic peculiarities are here disregarded. They have pre- 
viously been treated by Grønlund and Warming. Some bio- 
logical facts are of greater interest in this connection. 
In »Flöra Islands« the country is divided into 5 areas, viz. the 
East Country or the land between the Langanes Mountains and 
Hornafjöröur; the North Country between the Langanes Mountains 
and Hrütafjöröur; the North West Country or Vestfirdir; the South 
West Country between Gilsfjöröur and the Reykjanes Mountains, 
and finally the South Country between the Reykjanes Mountains 
and Hornafjöröur. The distribution of each species in each of the 
aforementioned 5 areas is given in the Flora. By determining the 
life form of each species and calculating the percentage of the va- 
rious life forms in the total number of phanerogams we arrive at 
the biological spectra given in table 3, p. 17, partly for the whole 
country partly for each of the 5 areas. Of greatest interest are the 
chamaephytes, the chamaephyte percentage for the whole country 
being 15.2; hence, as shown by Raunkizr in 1908, Iceland belongs 
to the subarctic hemicryptophyte-chamaephyte area. For the rest 
there is a striking, even though slight, difference in the content of 
chamaephytes in each of the 5 areas. The South Country has a 
chamaephyte percentage of 15.1, the South West Country has 15.2, 
