GREENLAND FLOWERS 63 
raised plateau, one finds stretches of muddy flats 
and boggy ground covered with the waving white 
plumes of the Cotton grass (Eriophorum, Fig. 25), 
and many other familiar plants; on the drier 
ground are bright reddish purple patches of a 
handsome Willowherb closely allied to our common 
British species, clumps of light yellow Poppies, 
and darker and more brilliant Dandelions. In both 
wet and dry situations the bright green feathery 
stems of the common Horsetail flourish in quantity. 
The hill-sides are often covered with a thick 
growth of heath-forming vegetation mixed with 
stumpy Willows; the leaves of some species of 
Willow are covered with silvery down and form 
an attractive background to the numberless cat- 
kins conspicuous by their bright red colour. 
Trailing branches of the Dwarf Birch, with smaller 
and less obvious flowering shoots, a parti-coloured 
tangle of Lichens, Mosses in different shades of 
green, and creeping or erect Club-Mosses (species 
of Lycopodium) are characteristic elements in the 
vegetation. Among the common heath plants are 
the Bilberry, which in the latter part of the summer 
provides an abundance of fruits dusted with a 
blue-grey bloom, the Crowberry, a Rhododendron 
resembling the Alpine Rose, a species of Ledum, 
sometimes called Labrador tea, a plant of American 
origin with dense and fragrant clusters of star-like 
flowers, Phyllodoce coerulea, its purple bells re- 
calling those of our heaths, and an abundance of 
the beautiful white flowers of Diapensia, a genus 
with a wide distribution from Spitsbergen through 
