THE FLORA 419 
Europe than Greenland does? Or that there are many 
plants here identical with those growing on the southern 
slopes of the Alps, which are altogether lacking in northern 
Kurope? Or, still more strangely, that one must seek in 
the Arctic regions of America, and not in Europe, for the 
closest resemblances to the plants that flourished in the 
far distant Miocene age in central Europe? Yet so we 
are assured by competent authorities. To these facts we 
may add the following statements from Hooker :— 
The polar regions have relatively fewer species and vari- 
eties than have other regions. The flora of all its parts is 
largely identical or closely similar, but is unequally dis- 
tributed. Of all Arctic regions, Greenland exhibits the 
greatest poverty in number of species. Many Scandina- 
vian plants have found their way westward to Greenland, 
but have stopped short on its west coast, without crossing 
to America; many American types terminate as abruptly 
on the west coast of Baffin’s Bay, not crossing to Green- 
land and Europe; Greenland contains actually much fewer 
species of European plants than have found their way 
eastwards from Lapland by Asia into Western and Eastern 
Arctic America; the Scandinavian vegetation has in every 
longitude migrated across the tropics of Asia and America, 
while plants typical of these continents which have found 
their way into the Arctic regions have remained restricted 
to their own meridians. 
These facts, at first seemingly inexplicable, and actually 
so under existing conditions of sea, land, and temperature, 
naturally have their explanation in the evolutionary and 
geological history of our globe. Most of them will be 
understood clearly from the following account given by 
