STUDIES ON THE VEGETATION OF ICELAND 95 
Polygonum viviparum, Silene acaulis, Armeria maritima, Salix her- 
bacea, Arabis petræa, A. alpina, Saxifraga cernua and S. nivalis. 
The third type of vegetation mentioned by Stefänsson is the 
myri vegetation. This is described as follows in pp. 201—203. 
“On Grimstungnaheidi to the south-west of Vatnsdalur I met with 
a rather widespread form of vegetation which somewhat resembled 
the usual heather mo by its uneven, more or less knolly surface 
and its greyish hue, but the soil is rather damp, at least in the early 
summer, and here Grimmia hypnoides is entirely dominant, covering 
large areas completely.” These moss moes “which must in the 
main be regarded as transitional between the heather mo and the 
extensive vegetation of the pools” are poor in flowering plants, 
though Cassiope hypnoides and Pedicularis flammea are of common 
occurrence. 
On the vegetation proper of the pools Stefänsson writes: 
“even at a distance two variations of this vegetation may easily be 
distinguished, the brownish Eriophorum pools characterised by Erio- 
phorum angustifolium and the bluish-green Carex pools, where the 
bluish or greyish-green C. ampullacea is the dominant plant. This 
difference is so striking that the peasants have a special term for 
each of these; the former, the Eriophorum pools, are called “Brok- 
fla”, while the latter pools are called “Ljosastarar flå”. They also 
differ somewhat with regard to composition of species. In the 
Eriophorum pools Carex pulla, C. alpina, C. vulgaris, and C. hyper- 
borea are the most conspicuous, whereas, in the Carex pools, Carex 
rariflora, C. vaginata, and C. vulgaris are very common, likewise 
Juncus biglumis. But as a whole this vegetation of the highland 
pools is extremely poor in species, and of dicotyledons I only ob- 
served very few” e.g. Cardamine pratensis and Slellaria crassifolia. 
“Below, on Vatnsdalshals the vegetation of the pools is somewhat 
richer and more like that of the pools at the bottom of the valley, 
though not nearly so luxuriant. It consists in the main of the 
common sedges, e. g. Carex vulgaris, C. chordorrhiza, C. rariflora and 
C. rigida, Eriophorum polystachyum, and Scirpus cespitosus.” 
These are the three types of vegetation, mo, melar, and myri, 
occurring in the highland tracts around Vatnsdalur. However, from 
the descriptions we must assume that, in addition to these three, 
there occurs a fourth type viz. the geiri or snow patch vegeta- 
tion. Thus Stefansson, when dealing with the vegetation on Vidi- 
dalsfjall, on p. 196, writes as follows: “Some of the little grooves 
