66 H. G. SIMMONS. [sec. arct. exp. fram 



The plant grew in swamps, generally in deep moss. The flowers 

 were seen about the beginning of July. 



Occurrence. Only found in the southern coast, where it was 

 fairly common in swamps: Fram Fjord, in several places (1615); Har- 

 bour Fjord, Big Valley (2336), Sir Inglis Peak (2450) ; Muskox Fjord 

 (2118); Goose Fjord, valley at the bottom (3269), Yellow Hill (3724), and 

 many other places. Not found in the west coast, but probably growing 

 there, as Schei had it in his Heiberg Land collection. 



Distribution: North-eastern Greenland, Arctic Amei-ican Archi- 

 pelago (widely distributed), Arctic America, down to Labrador and Sas- 

 katchawan, Alaska, Pribilof Islands, St. Lawrence Island, Arctic Siberia, 

 Kamshatka, Temperate Asia down to the Himalayas and Caucasus, 

 Northern and Central Europe, Novaja Semlja, Spitsbergen, mountains 

 of Great Britain, Iceland. 



Saxifraga tricuspidata, Rottb. 



iS. tricuspidata, Rottboll, PI. Isl. Gronl., 1770; Retzius, F1. Scand. Prodr. ; Stern- 

 berg, Revis. Saxifr. ; Engler, Mon. Saxifr. ; Lange, Consp. Fl. Groenl. ; Kruuse, 

 List E. Greenl. ; Nathorst, N. W. Gronl.; Hart, Bot. Br. Pol. Exp.; Greely, 

 Rep.; Simmons, Prel. Rep. et Bot. Arb.; Hooker, Fl. Bor. Amer. ; Britton & 

 Brown, III. Fl.; Ledebour, Fl. Ross.; S. Chamissoi, Sternberg, 1. c. suppl. 

 Fig. RottbOll, 1. c, T. 6, fig. 21; Fl. Dan., T. 976. 



Some american botanists (Gray, Bot. N. Un. St., p. 143; Britton 

 & Brown, 1. c, II, p. 172) give the colour of the flower as yellow, 

 but as Hart, 1. c, p. 32, observes, this does not hold true. The petals 

 are either entirely pure white, or more or less dotted with purple or 

 orange stains, but they are never entirely yellow in the living plant. 

 In dried specimens, and especially in badly-preserved ones, they will of 

 course get a yellowish appearance, and the mistake may have arisen 

 from the authors mentioned having had only dried specimens from which 

 to form the description. Hooker, 1. c, I, p. 254, has "petalis obovato- 

 oblongis albis immaculatis". Britton & Brown also are mistaken in 

 recording the plant from "Arctic Europe". Probably this is due to their 

 quoting Retzius as author instead of Rottboll; indeed it is rather 

 misleading, that this merely american plant has been entered in the 

 above-quoted work of Retzius. 



The plant is generally found in gravelly localities, where, as also 

 in the dense vegetation of slopes, it can become large, vigorous, long- 

 branched, and forms wide-spread mats. In rock ledges and in very 

 dry places it becomes small and reduced, and sometimes gets entire 



