256 



3o' except those collected in Labrador. If 76° north latitude 

 would be taken as the southern boundary instead of 72°, I think 

 that the flora of the region would not comprise 100 species in 

 all, as most of the additional Greenland species mentioned above 

 have been recorded only a little north of 72°, and a few of the 

 Ellesmere Land species are limited to the extreme southern 

 portion of that island. 



The grasses are all low and not very abundant. Of course, 

 none of them could be used for hay, though they constitute an im- 

 portant part of the summer food for muskoxen and hares. The 

 principal food for the former consists, however, of lichens and 

 mosses. The grasses can be classified into two kinds: (i) The 

 bunch grasses with very short rootstocks and sending up 

 numerous branches from inside the lower sheaths. (2) Those 

 with long stoloniferous rootstocks, forming sods like the Ken- 

 tucky bluegrass. The former are growing in the gravel beds 

 and among rocks, the latter in richer and moister soil around 

 brooks and springs and below melting snowdrifts. 



The sedge family is represented by two species of cotton grass, 

 Eriophorum, one species each of Kohresia and Elyna, the latter 

 genera closely related to the true sedges, Carex. The rest of the 

 family consists of species of the latter genus. Most of them 

 grow in the wetter places and have rootstocks. 



The Juncaceae, the rushes, are represented by one species of 

 Juncus in Ellesmere Land and two in northern Greenland, two 

 species of Juncoides or Liizida in the former and four in the latter. 



No other family of the monocotyledons is represented in 

 Ellesmere Land, except Melanthaceae by one species, Tofieldia 

 palustrir, in northern Greenland. 



The willow family has three representatives in Ellesmere Land 

 and six in northern Greenland. All are low undershrubs. So 

 also is the only representative of the birch family in northern 

 Greenland, viz., Betula flabellifolia. 



The representatives of the buckwheat family are Oxyria 

 digyna, as stated before, one of the food plants, and Polygonum 

 viviparum, a common alpine-arctic species. The third represen- 

 tative in northern Greenland is an introduced weed, one of the 

 sorrels, Rumex Acetosella. 



