Alpine and Arctic Floras 
crack or cranny of the rock, which has been filled up 
by blown dust and moss-earth, &c. Its pink shoots will 
be found growing through the moss-cushion, and 
obviously it is living on the soil formed by many ages 
of lichen and moss-growth, and is also attacking the 
rock or clay below. Yet the moss surrounds it, and a 
struggle is going on between the two of them. If the 
rainfall is heavy and frequent the moss will conquer, 
and a Sphagnum bog will cover the ground. Should 
the blaeberry manage to hold its own, aided by dry 
spells and plenty of wind, it will form a sort of blaeberry 
moor, and eventually a heather moor growing on a 
dryish peaty soil, which, however, has still a coating of 
mosses and lichens. 
In another part of the summit one may find such 
sedges as the deer’s hair Scirpus. That part might turn 
into a cotton-grass moor, which may become a continu- 
ous battlefield between the silvery cotton-grass and the 
Sphagnum, lasting perhaps for hundreds of years, for 
some cotton-grass peats are many feet in thickness, 
But on very dry or steep slopes or, for example, on 
a limestone ridge, the mountain grasses manage to 
conquer the moss altogether, and the summit might 
become an alpine meadow or, in our own country, sheep 
pastures, that is, grass heaths (chiefly Nardus mixed with 
rushes and sedges), or the beautiful, green, closely 
nibbled turf of mountain limestone or basalt. 
When one lifts one’s eyes from the battleground on 
the summit and ‘surveys the surrounding country, one 
sees miles of peat-moss, heather moor, cotton-grass 
swamp, or grass heaths.* 
It was by this sort of proceeding that Britain was 
* The reader will hardly realise the enormous area occupied by such vege- 
tation unless he consults the botanical survey maps of Smith, Lewis, and 
others (see p. 224), or, which is preferable, visits such hills himself. 
gI 
