FLORA. 169 
Highlands; but in Iceland it overspreads the whole 
country, flourishing more abundantly, and attaining to a 
larger growth on the volcanic soil of the western coast 
than elsewhere. It is collected triennially, for it requires 
three years to reach maturity, after the spots where it 
thrives have been cleared. We are told that the meal 
obtained from it, when mixed with wheat-flour, produces 
a greater quantity, though perhaps a less nutritious 
quality, of bread than can be manufactured from wheat- 
flour alone. The great objection to it is its bitterness, 
arising from its peculiar astringent principle, cetraria. 
However, the Lapps and Icelanders remove this disagree- 
able pungency by a simple process. They chop the lichen 
to pieces, and macerate it for several days in water mixed 
with salt of tartar or quicklime, which it absorbs very 
readily ; next they dry it, and pulverize it; then; mixed 
with the flour of the common knot-grass, it is made into 
a cake, or boiled, and eaten with reindeer’s milk. 
‘Mosses are abundant in the Arctic regions, increasing 
in number and beauty as we approach the Pole, and 
covering the desert land with a thin veil of verdure, which 
refreshes the eye and gladdens the heart of the traveller. 
On the hills of Lapland and Greenland they are exten- 
sively distributed ; and the landscape owes most of its 
interest to the charming contrasts they afford. Of all 
the genera, perhaps the bog-mosses, Sphagna, are the 
most luxuriant; but at the same time they are the least 
attractive, and the plains which they cover are even 
drearier than the naked rock. In Melville Island these 
mosses form upwards of a fourth part of the whole flora, 
Much finer to the sight is the common hair-moss (Poly- 
trichum commune), which extends over the levels of Lap- 
land, and is used by the Lapps, when they are bound on 
long journeys, for a temporary couch, We may mention 
also the fork-moss (Dicranum), which the Eskimos twist 
into wicks for their rude lamps. 
