INTRODUCTION. 



The description of the Flora of the Arctic Sea here published is chiefly founded 

 on the experience acquired and the collections brought together by myself during 

 voyages in the arctic waters. Since I entered the ranks of Swedish arctic voyagers 

 about a decennium ago as a member of the Spitzbergen expedition of 1872 — 73, the 

 leader of this as well as all greater Swedish arctic expeditions in later times, A. E. 

 NoRDENSKiOLD, has kindly admitted me as a companion to all his following voyages of 

 exploration in the high North: the expeditions of 1875 and 1876 to Novaya Zemlya 

 and the mouth of the Yenissei and the Vega expedition 1878 — 80. By these means I 

 have had the advantage of making myself familiar, by studies in the nature, with the 

 marine Flora on the north coast of Norway, where I carried on algological researches 

 during the greater part of the summer 1876, and on the coasts of Spitzbergen, Novaya 

 Zemlya and northern Siberia, accordingly, within a considerable part of the arctic re- 

 gion. Of the vegetation of the rest of the Polar-Sea I have gained knowledge, partly 

 by consulting the collections brought home from there, amongst which there ought to be 

 especially mentioned the collections of algae from the west coast of Greenland belonging 

 to the Botanical Museum of Copenhagen and placed at my disposal through the kind 

 intercession of Professor J. Lange and Mr. Hj. Kj^bskou, partly by means of the lite- 

 rature written on the subject. The most important works are those of Dickie and 

 Gobi, and, above all, several treatises by J. G. Agabdh, which are of very high value 

 on account of this eminent algologist having with his usual acumen and accuracy un- 

 raveled several of the most complicated and difficult groups of alga3 of the arctic Flora. 

 With regard to these and other works which I have made use of, I refer the reader 

 to my list of literature given below. 



