30 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 
in different parts of Europe, others have their 
nearest relatives in North America: where was the 
original home of the Arctic floras and what was 
their fate during and subsequent to the Glacial 
period which reduced North America and north 
and central Europe to much the same state as that 
of Greenland to-day? When the Glacial period 
was at its maximum, Greenland was even more 
completely covered with ice than it is to-day and 
the probability is that the whole of the flora was 
destroyed. With perhaps one exception, a species 
of Pondweed (Potamogeton groenlandicum), the four 
hundred odd species of flowering plants and fern- 
like plants which have been recorded by botanists 
from different parts of the island include none that 
are peculiar to Greenland; they are either American 
and circumpolar types or southern species. The 
American and circumpolar plants doubtless arrived, 
when climatic conditions became possible for the 
existence of the higher plants, by way of Smith 
Sound on the north-west corner, while most of 
the immigrants from the south and west were 
transported across the sea by natural agencies. A 
few were no doubt introduced by the old Norse 
colonists. It has been assumed, though on insuf- 
ficient evidence, that a land connexion existed in 
post-glacial times between East Greenland, Iceland, 
and the Faroes?. 
1 Mr Holttum has recently written an account (Fournal of 
Ecology, vol. x, No. 1, 1922) of the vegetation of West Greenland 
summarising the present state of knowledge from an ecological 
standpoint. A botanical bibliography is appended. 
