ARCTIC VEGETATION 61 
though applicable to certain localities in the winter, 
do scant justice to Greenland in summer. It is a 
land with many advantages: there are no letters, 
no telegrams, and no public telephones—the chief 
Danish official at one of the larger Settlements 
told me with pride that he had a local telephone. 
Though in some districts mosquitoes may be 
troublesome, the fauna of the country is fortunately 
poor in insect pests; there are no fleas, except, I 
believe, in one restricted area on the west coast; 
no ants, and no myriapods. There are no reptiles, 
frogs, or rats. 
The abundance of flowers makes an unexpected 
impression upon a visitor imbued with the idea of 
a country practically buried under a mass of ice 
of unknown depth and of a long winter when the 
sea is frozen and even the coastal regions are 
covered with snow. One effect of Arctic conditions 
is to limit the production of foliage shoots and 
often to induce an abnormal development of sub- 
terranean stems and roots and a prolific crop of 
flowers. The amount of energy expended in the 
production of roots becomes apparent if an attempt 
is made to dig up intact a fairly large prostrate 
Willow. The rocky ground is generally covered 
with a thin layer of soil and roots are unable to 
grow far in a vertical direction. In some places 
permanently frozen ground is met with at about 
two feet below the surface, while in other situations 
there may be at least two yards of unfrozen earth 
or sand in the summer. The root of one Willow 
we dug up was traced for at least twelve yards 
