201 



At the time of our first \-isit, May 28, winter still had full 

 possession, but eleven days later we found the dwarf willows, 

 drabas, erigerons, and saxifrages pushing up their buds and 

 leaves, on spots bare of snow, with wonderful rapidity. This 

 was the beginning of spring at the northwest end of the island. 

 On July 4 the flora seemed to have reached its highest develop- 

 ment. The bottoms of the glacial valleys were in many places 

 covered with tall grasses and carices evenly planted and forming 

 meadows of considerable size, while the drier portions and the 

 sloping grounds about them were enlivened with gay, highly 

 colored flowers from an inch to nearly two feet in height, such 

 as Aconitum Napellus L., var. delphinifoliuin Ser., Polemonium 

 coerideiim L., Papaver niidicaule L., Draba alpina L., and Silene 

 acaiiHs L., in large, closely flowered tufts, as well as andromeda, 

 ledum, linnaea, cassiope, and several species of vaccinium and 

 saxifraga. 



St. Michael 



The region about St. Michael is a magnificent tundra, crowded 

 with Arctic lichens and mosses, which here develop under most 

 favorable conditions. In the spongy plush formed by the lower 

 plants, in which one sinks almost knee-deep at every step, there 

 is a sparse growth of grasses, carices, and rushes, tall enough to 

 wave in the wind, while empetrum, the dwarf birch, and the 

 various heathworts flourish here in all their beauty of bright 

 leaves and flowers. The moss mantle for the most part rests 

 on a stratum of ice that never melts to any great extent, and the 

 ice on a bed rock of black vesicular lava. Ridges of the lava 

 rise here and there above the general level in rough masses, 

 affording ground for plants that like a drier soil. Numerous 

 hollows and watercourses also occur on the general tundra, whose 

 well-drained banks are decked with gay flowers in lavish abund- 

 ance, and meadow patches of grasses shoulder-high, suggestive 

 of regions much farther south. 



The following plants and a few doubtful species not yet deter- 

 mined were collected here : — 



